Nick Carter

The Weapon of Night

CHAPTER ONE

Strange Things Happen When The Lights Are Low

If there was one thing that could be said for Heinrich Stroebling, it was that he had not permitted twenty-odd years of stolen freedom to soften his ex-gauleiter’s body. Even as Henry Steele, Argentinian businessman with a branch office in Chicago, he had kept himself in trim at the better country clubs and gymnasiums of various nations. He had been obsessed with physical fitness, bodily perfection and muscular exercise, since his days with the Hitler Youth organization back in Nazi Germany.

He was exercising now.

Every ounce of his finely tuned strength was straining savagely against a male body as strong and agile as his own — a younger body than his, magnificent at its best, but now bruised and pulsing with pain from a beating at the hands of Stroebling’s sidekick.

The sidekick lay dead in the room where Nick had been held captive, and there was only Stroebling left between Nick and the end of a long, bloody trail. The trail began with the death of hundreds of innocents when Stroebling had worn a uniform and cracked a whip. The end of it was to be here and now, on this rooftop in Chicago on this sultry, overcast evening in late fall.

But it would only be the end if Nick could finish him off before his own strength gave out.

Nick grunted with the pain of an armlock and rolled over, kicking. He had nothing to help him, nothing but his abused and aching muscles. His usual arsenal of weapons lay hidden somewhere in that torture room. No one else knew where he was. No one knew that he had, at last, caught up with Stroebling, that with one final blow in the right place he might snuff out one of Nazi Germany’s arch war criminals.

At the moment it looked as though Nick would be the one to be snuffed out.

He kneed Stroebling’s groin and twisted free to swing a razor chop at the big German’s neck. Now it was Stroebling who grunted — twice in rapid succession — but he kept coming at him, closing in with two steely arms and his own jabbing knee.

There was silence around them but for the scuffling and grunting. Neither of them was aware of the sounds of city traffic twenty-three floors below this old building where Stroebling kept his office. Neither of them gave a thought to the density of the air, to the dark overcast that lay like a smoke-drenched blanket between city and sky. Neither of them thought of anything but the absolute necessity of killing the other.

Now they were apart and on their feet, panting heavily. The old tarred roofing — the building was one of Chicago’s oldest skyscrapers — crackled beneath them as they shuffled their feet in the dance of death. Stroebling’s hand shot out like the whip he had once carried. Nick dodged, tired almost to death, and swung his right leg high in the savate kick that glanced off the underside of Stroebling’s rock-hard chin.

Stroebling leaped, and they went down together.

Rough hands clawed at Nick’s throat.

Nick’s thumbs ground into Stroebling’s eyes.

Break and stalemate.

This time it was Nick who leaped; this time it was his feet which slammed the full weight of his body sideways against the other man and sent him sprawling. A gasping bellow of rage burst from Stroebling’s throat, and again they writhed together in a tangled, undulating heap.

The hard blade of Stroebling’s hand slammed against Nick’s face. Nick’s head jerked suddenly, painfully, but his own hands shot out to grasp at Stroebling’s throat. They tightened, squeezed.

Stroebling arched his body like a fighting tiger and thrust upward with all his strength — turning, twisting, convulsing his body to shake off the thing at his throat. Nick held on, squeezed harder.

For a moment Stroebling lay still. Nick thought he had him, hoped he had him, prayed that he had him, because his own strength seemed to be flickering out like a dying candle.

Then the man underneath him moved abruptly and the granite hardness of the heels of both hands ramrodded up into Nick’s face with piledriver force, and the big German squirmed mightily in that same moment and tore himself free. He rose to a crouch and staggered backwards, his face a twisted mask of hatred in the dim light that glowed from the higher buildings nearby, and the street lights that shone far below.

Nick snaked out both arms, locked his hands around the murderer’s ankle, and tugged. Stroebling fell heavily — but rolled and landed even more heavily to straddle Nick’s body. His legs went out in a scissors grip and his hands clamped around Nick’s throat.

This time Stroebling was the one who squeezed — savagely, inexorably, desperately. He was breathing harshly now and spitting out sibilant German words, guttural sounds of loath-ing and bloodlust — and his grip on Nick’s throat was tightening.

There was a singing in Nick’s ears and an agony in his throat, and it seemed to him that the red haze in which his eyes were swimming was flickering into darkness. He was through; he was finished; everything was going black.

But then the sensation passed, and he was still alive and Stroebling was still clamping his throat with those steely, killing, death-camp commandant’s hands — the hands that had killed so often and so horribly.

Nick could not let him get away.

He could not let him live!

Nick fought for breath and summoned up his last reserves of strength.

But it was his indomitable will rather than his strength that drove him to gouge ruthlessly into the other man’s rib cage — gouge deep and hard, to twist his clawing hand in the muscled flesh, to fasten on rib bone and to pull with a savagery born of the knowledge that this was his last chance. Then he rolled, with Stroebling’s hands still at his throat; rolled over hard, still gouging and pulling, drawing back his hands one after the other and punching them deep into the gut and gouging and twisting again and again until he could hear bone snapping.

Stroebling screamed and loosed his hold and threw himself away from Nick to roll, moaning, on the tar roof.

Nick shook his head to clear it, exulting at the promise of victory. Odds were even again, more than even; now they were on his side. Stroebling was hurt now, too; he was close to exhaustion and writhing in agony.

Now he did have him!

He gave himself a moment to gather breath.

It was the wrong moment.

Stroebling was getting slowly to his feet, backing away on his haunches and moaning. He, too, was gathering breath. Maybe for one last spring. But Nick was going to beat him to it, and it did not matter to him that Stroebling was still backing and snarling and putting distance between them. Maybe he was trying to get away. So what if he was? Where could he go? Down the inner stairs they had come up, Stroebling ahead with Nick after him? Down the rattle-trap, death trap of a fire escape, to the sidewalk twenty-three floors below?

No — Stroebling must know that Nick could still pace him, would not hesitate to jump him even at the risk of his own life. The German seemed to realize it; he had stopped backing now. He was crouching, staring at Nick, his hands curled into claws ready for the pounce and kill.

Nick’s body tensed, relaxed, then tautened for the spring. He watched Stroebling and ordered his own weary body to go in for the attack.

His feet left the roof and a sudden blackness hit him in the face like a hammerblow.

Where there had been a dim haze of light, now there was nothing.

Stroebling vanished from sight. Everything vanished. There was nothing but intense darkness, a thick and overwhelming darkness as black as a coal pit in hell. And then there was the feel of cloth as Nick landed in the black nothingness and touched Stroebling. Just touched him. And lost him in a little rustle of sound.

He was slow with the agony of his exhaustion, and when he lunged after the rustle of sound there was nothing there.

He cursed softly and groped about. Only the tarred roof met his searching fingers.

Then he heard a little crackle of sound from several feet away.

Stroebling, stealing away from him across the ancient dried-out tar, gliding off into the hell-sent inexplicable darkness.

The roof creaked as Nick moved. He pulled off his shoes and crept silently over the time-worn tar.

There was no longer any sound from Stroebling.

Only absolute silence. Absolute blackness.

No, not absolute silence. On the roof with him, yes; but not down on the street below. Automobile horns, plenty of them; a police whistle blowing; people shouting. But nothing up here.

His gliding feet kicked against something. He bent to touch it. Two somethings. Stroebling’s shoes.

So he, too, was stalking in deliberate silence. Creeping about the roof to lay ambush for Nick. Or maybe find the open doorway to the inner stairs.

Nick sent his mind through the darkness, remembering. The door had been about fifteen feet to his right and six feet behind him when all the lights went out. So now it would be about twelve feet behind him and ten feet to the right.

Or would Stroebling try the fire escape? Or was he waiting for a sound from Nick?

Nick froze… waited… listened — and thought.

The lights could come on again at any minute, any second. Stroebling would think that, too. So now he was probably trying to figure out his best bet — make for the stairs and a getaway, or find cover on the roof from which he could leap out and attack as soon as the lights came back.

What cover? There was the housing for the upper stairway landing, the housing for the elevators, and the water tank. And that was about it. But it was enough.

Nick’s own best bet, he figured, was to head for the stairway door and wait there.

He moved silently through the darkness, probing it with his senses, listening for Stroebling, counting paces.

It was incredibly dark. There was little room in his mind for idle thought but he could not help wondering what had caused the blackout and why it was so oppressive. Power failure, sure, but— He sniffed the air. Dampness in it. And fumes. Smog. He had been occupied to take conscious note of it before. But the pollution in the air was almost tangible. It was like Los Angeles at its worst, like Pittsburgh before the clean-up, like London during that one lethal season when four thousand people had died of the filth in the air.

His eyes were smarting from it and his lungs were clogged with it. Strange, he thought.

But where the hell was Stroebling?

Nick’s fingers touched a wall and slid along it. The doorway to the stairwell should be about here…

The sound came from yards away. A latch was clicking, softly at first, and then louder as if it were resisting. He pivoted.

What the devil! Could he have been so wrong about the door?

He moved quickly toward the sound, lightly on the balls of his feet, cautiously in case of a trap.

The sound got louder and a door wrenched open.

He was swearing as he reached it. Stroebling was through the door and on his way and in the darkness he would get away…. But one corner of his mind nagged Nick with a question.

How come Stroebling had had to wrestle with the door? It had been open.

His answer came with the sound of something splintering and a breath of warm, greasy air and a scream, that began on a high, piercing note that crescendoed, echoing, lowering, thinning out like a wailing siren fast fading into the distance — and then ending.

He could not be sure, but he thought he heard a thud from very far below.

The warm, greasy air of the open elevator shaft blew gently into his face and he was suddenly damp with sweat.

He closed the door and turned away, shaken. So the blackout that had so nearly offered escape to Stroebling had taken him instead.

One blackout, one old building, one ancient and ill-guarded elevator housing, and the trail was ended.

There was a faint suggestion of light rising from the sky to the east. He made for it, treading carefully through the blackness until he came to a wall and looked over it to the city below.

Tiny threads of light flickered in several windows. Two low buildings — hospital and firehouse, he thought — were brightly lit. Headlights shone in the streets. Here and there, a flashlight poked its beam into the gloom.

That was all. The Loop was black. The shores of Lake Michigan lay under a dark shroud. To the south, west, north, east, all was darkness but for a rare pin point of light or small glowworm sparks that made the darkness even darker.

Another one, he thought. Another one of those blackouts that they said could never happen again.

But at the moment all it meant to him was the need to drag his tired body down twenty-three flights of stairs in search of a telephone, a drink, a bed and sleep. Ami it marked the close of the case of Heinrich Stroebling.

He did not know it at the time, but it marked the opening of another.

* * *

Jimmy Jones was too young to read the newspapers, not too young to understand the words, but too young to care. Batman was his speed. And Batman had not been in Chicago the night before last, so Jimmy didn’t know that all of Chicago and its suburbs and much of the state of Illinois and some parts of the neighboring states had been blacked out for five long hours before the lights had suddenly, inexplicably, come on again. Nor did he know that, a year ago almost to the day, a boy a little older than himself had walked along a road in New Hampshire doing exactly what Jimmy was doing now on this chilly night in Maine.

Jimmy was on his way home to supper and he was swinging a stick. The sun was down and he was cold and there were some funny flashing lights in the sky that made him feel a little bit scared. So he swung his stick to make himself feel tough, and he whacked it against the trees alongside the road, and he whacked it against the light poles.

He hit two light poles and nothing happened except for the satisfying sound of the stick going thwack against the poles.

When he hit the third pole the light went out.

“Oh, Kee-rist!” he said guiltily, and stared down the dark road leading home.

All the lights had gone out. All the lights along the road and all the lights in the town ahead.

“Jeeze!” he breathed. “Oh, Jeeze, I really done it now!”

He started to run in the darkness.

He forgot all about the weird flashing lights in the sky.

But the people in his darkened home town saw them when their own lights went out and some of those people were a little uneasy. And some of them were unashamedly afraid.

Three days later in the Rocky Mountains, Ranger Horace Smith got out of his jeep to stretch his legs and admire his second favorite piece of scenery. The first was Alice, and she was home in Boulder; the second was Elkhorn Reservoir, usually crusted over with ice at this time of year but so far still rippling and blue under the near-winter sky.

Kind of warm for this time of year, he told himself as he tramped between the tall trees and around the natural rock wall that cut the dam off from the sight of passing tourists. Wouldn’t be at all surprised if there wasn’t something in that idea that the Russians are interfering with our weather. Next thing you know, they’ll be melting the Arctic ice cap to turn Siberia into a blooming desert and flood the eastern seaboard.

Well, anyway, they couldn’t touch the Rockies and the cool blue stretch of water that he loved so much.

He climbed over a pile of rock and rounded the last big boulder. His dam lay ahead, calm and beautiful under the midday sun. He gazed at it lovingly.

And felt a sudden, awful sensation as though his mind had snapped.

He blinked, shook his head, looked again.

At sunset, sometimes, yes, but not at high noon, never at high noon.

For some reason he fell on his knees and crawled toward the water.

Nothing had changed by the time he reached it.

It was still blood-red.

And down below, in the valley, in the little town that had once been a mining camp, Mrs. Myrtle Houston turned on a kitchen faucet and a stream of reddish fluid poured out.

She was not the only housewife in Gold Gap who was late with lunch that day.

By dinnertime the strangeness of the red lake was being commented on throughout the state of Colorado. No one could explain it.

Next day in Pocatello, Idaho, Jake Crewe crawled out of bed at 6 a.m. as always but without his usual morning cheerfulness. He had not slept well. The night had been stifling, not so much from heat as from airlessness. Not a breath of air had stirred. The atmosphere had lain heavy like some vast sleeping animal.

Jake’s barrel chest expanded as he stood at the open window trying to suck in air. Sunrise wasn’t due for another fifty-six minutes but there ought to be some sign of morning glow by now.

There wasn’t any.

A haze lay low over the town, a dirty, rank-smelling fog the likes of which he had never seen before. Not a mist, not a rain fog; just a grubby blanket of filth.

He stared at it incredulously and sniffed. Chemical odors. Auto fumes. Smoke, Sulphur, or something like it. He muttered irritably and padded to the bathroom to splash his face with cold water and wash away the feeling of being a walking lump of grime.

The smell of the water was vile.

By eight o’clock that morning nearly all of Pocatello’s thirty thousand citizens were uncomfortably aware that their city’s cool, clean air and flowing fresh water had unaccountably become contaminated.

They were not the least bit reassured to discover, later in the day, that their capital city of Boise was similarly affected. Not reassured at all.

* * *

FLAGSTAFF, ARIZONA, NOVEMBER 17 — Eighty-seven people including three engineers, one medical doctor, two airline pilots, five teachers, several dozen students, eighteen tourists and four state troopers witnessed last night’s aerial display of UFO’s near Humphrey’s Peak. Trooper Michael counted twelve “fiery balls in the sky, with tails behind them that looked like jet streams of green fire.” Dr. Henry Matheson’s camera recorded three rapid pictures of them before they “made a sudden vertical ascent and vanished over the mountains.” Today, talking to this reporter, he commented: “I’d like to see them try to explain this lot away as marsh gas.

Over Arizona’s highest peak? Not likely. Especially after that thing a couple of days ago right out in the desert. I tell you, people are getting unnerved by this kind of thing, and it’s time we took some real action before we get a state of panic…

EDITORIAL, KANSAS CITY MORNING SUN, NOVEMBER 10 — “After nine hours and forty-seven minutes of chaos, the lights in the Plains States came on again this morning at five thirty-five. Fourteen people died in accidents caused directly or indirectly by the power failure. Hundreds of homes were without water throughout the night. Thousands of people were stranded in their offices, on the streets, in elevators. Hundreds of thousands of residents in these four states were suddenly deprived of heat, light, comfort — and an explanation. Why did this happen again? Are we never to know? Why are the power companies unable to explain why it happened and how the situation suddenly corrected itself? We have a right to know, and we demand…

* * *

“Howdy, howdy, howdy, folks, Swingin’ Sammy’s back with you again to bring you all the lastest recorded hits selected especially for you by your favorite radio station, good old WROT in Tul — Wha? One moment, folks. Got a bulletin here. Hey! Flash! From the City Water Supply Commission. Water! Me, I never touch the stuff… Say, maybe you better not, too. Says here — and listen carefully folks — WARNING! DO NOT REPEAT — DO NOT DRINK THE WATER FROM YOUR HOME FAUCETS, DO NOT DRINK ANY CITY WATER, DO NOT DRINK ANY WATER IN THE AREA SERVED BY THE TAPACONIC RESERVOIR. THERE IS EVIDENCE OF UNUSUAL POLLUTION, NOT NECESSARILY HARMFUL, BUT UNTIL FINAL TESTS ARE MADE IT IS STRONGLY URGED THAT ALL RESIDENTS USE BOTTLED WATER OR OTHER LIQUIDS FROM SEALED CONTAINERS. DO NOT BE ALARMED — REPEAT — DO NOT BE ALARMED. BUT PLEASE CO-OPERATE. FURTHER DETAILS WILL BE SUPPLIED AS SOON AS AVAILABLE. Say, I thought my toothbrush tasted kinda funny this morning.”

* * *

Nick Carter stubbed out his cigarette and fastened his seat belt. The lights of New York City’s fringes lay below him and his fellow passengers, and the Eastern Airlines Constellation was already nosing downward in a graceful curve.

He looked down. It was a clear, beautiful night, and he could see the lights of Brooklyn and Long Island and the Verrazano Bridge, and he was glad to be coming home after tying up all the loose ends in Chicago.

The lights gleamed and shimmered. The runway lay ahead, a bright, inviting path.

Then it was gone.

It vanished into the night along with Manhattan, most of Long Island, parts of Connecticut and New Jersey.

There was a babble of excited voices in the plane. The pilot banked and circled and thanked his lucky stars that there were stars in the clear night sky.

Three minutes later, to the second, the lights came on again.

Millions of people, Nick among them, breathed a deep sigh of relief. But their relief was tempered by the growing suspicion that it could happen again, by the near certainty that it would happen again.

And none of them knew why.

Nick was home in his upper West Side apartment a little more than an hour later after stopping at the letter drop near Columbia University. His own address was known to only his closest friends and most of his mail traveled a circuitous route before reaching him at the drop.

He opened the letter now, rolling smooth, icy bourbon over his tongue and wondering who could be writing him from Egypt.

The letter was signed Hakim Sadek. Hakim, of course! Hakim, the cross-eyed criminologist who had used his devious talents to such astonishing effect during that business in Africa.

The memory of Hakim’s tricks made Nick grin with pleasure.

But the letter was not very funny. He read it twice, carefully, and when he put it back into its envelope his face was grim.

CHAPTER TWO

Valentina The Great

“No,” said Hawk. “And take your elbows off the toast, if you please, and pass it to me. My God, you’d think some genius in this overpriced snob trap would find some way to keep toast warm.”

Nick passed the toast. True, it was cold and soggy, but that was not the fault of the Hotel Pierre. Hawk had been on the telephone almost continually since breakfast had been brought to his suite and Nick had arrived to greet the head of AXE on his return from a top-level meeting in Europe.

“No?” said Nick. “You’ve hardly been listening to me. Why No?”

“Of course I’ve been listening to you,” said Hawk, spreading marmalade with careful lavishness. He was unaccountably irritable but he had not lost the frontiersman’s appetite that somehow left him looking lean and wiry and leather-tough. “Anyway, I know all about it. Blackouts here, pollution there. Lakes that turn bright red and water that flows stinking from the faucets. Oh, even in Europe I heard all about it. Humph. I see by this morning’s papers that flying saucers were seen over Montauk again last night. Extremely sinister, without a doubt.” He attacked his scrambled eggs and concentrated on them for a while. Then he said, “Don’t think I haven’t been concerned. Discussed this with the Chief on the four-way system Wednesday night. Central thinks it’s mass hysteria due to Vietnam war nerves, precipitated by perfectly normal incidents that just happen, coincidentally, with rather more than normal frequency. People exaggerating things, putting two and two together and coming up with with forty-five. The Bureau says —”

“It’s more than two and two,” said Nick. “Even more than forty-five.”

“Die Bureau says,” Hawk repeated, giving Nick a beady stare, “that it is quite impossible for enemy agents to have been at work. All incidents may be ascribed to human error, mechanical malfunctioning, self-delusion and imagination. However, they warn us that we must not entirely overlook the possibility that Russian saboteurs are lurking in our midst. Witness the red lake, for one thing.” Hawk smiled a little sourly. “That one really hit J. Egbert where he lives. But he will be Alert, he said, and Ever-Watchful.”

He took a mouthful of coffee and made a face. “Pretty bad, at a dollar a cup. Pfui. Well. McCracken took a middle course between two middle courses, which is walking a fine line indeed. He subscribes to the theory that all these episodes can be easily explained, though he himself cannot explain them. Power failures have been common enough for decades. We all know that smog and pollution came to us with the machine age. And we also know, he says, that there is a psychological factor involved — that things of this sort come in waves, like suicides and airplane crashes and so on. It will pass, he says. Due to our national state of nerves — again, I quote him — the American people are lumping a whole lot of unrelated incidents together and inducing in themselves a state of semipanic. But just in case — and here he goes along with J. Egbert — we must maintain an attitude of vigilance. The Chief agreed. So. All state and local police will make extra efforts to investigate all such phenomena. Federal marshals will be sent wherever necessary and the National Guard has already been alerted in order that they may act in extreme cases. The FBI, as promised, will be Alert and Ever-Watchful. But we of AXE have been ordered to keep our noses out of it. Out. And that, Carter, is that.”

“Is it?” Nick said thoughtfully. “Pity. But I have one small trump card up my sleeve —”

“Keep it there!” Hawk snapped. “Unless you have concrete evidence of foreign instigation and a pretty good idea of where and how to start investigating. Do you?”

Nick shook his head. “I don’t. Nothing but suspicion.”

“I have that myself,” said Hawk. “And that’s all I have.” He took a deep draught of cooling liquid from his coffee cup, and his leathery face twisted into a grimace as he pushed the cup away. “Filthy stuff,” he growled.

“Made from the world’s best coffee beans and the world’s worst water,” Nick observed. “New York’s very own. With a pollution content higher than it’s ever been. Nonpoisonous, they tell us, but revolting to the taste. I wonder why?”

“That’s enough, Carter,” Hawk said coldly. “Subject closed. Even if you were free to go off on a wild-goose chase I wouldn’t waste your time that way. And you’re not free.

Starting tomorrow morning, you will be on escort duty until further notice.”

“Escort duty?” Nick said incredulously. That meant doing snoop patrol with some V.I.P. from a Communist or “uncommitted’ nation, and he did not care for the idea. He had not earned his title of Killmaster by conducting guided tours.

Hawk favored him with a thin smile. “It may prove to be more interesting than you think. What do you know about the nuclear fuel plant in West Valley, New York?”

Nick cast his mind back to the appropriate memory file. “Owned and operated by Nuclear Fuel Services,” he said. “It’s the first — and so far, the only — commercial nuclear-fuel reprocessing plant on American soil. It produces pure plutonium of the type used to make nuclear bombs, but not for military purposes — only for powering peaceful nuclear reactors. West Valley’s about thirty-five miles south of Buffalo, which puts it close to Lake Erie and not too far from the Canadian border.” He wrinkled his brows and reached slowly for a cigarette. “Not too far, in fact,” he said thoughtfully, “from the source of the “sixty-five Northeastern blackout. Never thought of that before — Yes, that is interesting.”

Hawk sighed. “Forget it, Nick,” he said tiredly. “Forget about the blackout angle. The point about the plant is this: It’s open to the public, on a prearranged basis. And not just the American public. To members of the International Atomic Energy Agency, to qualified scientists from friendly countries and to various foreign brass hats who qualify for other reasons. The idea is to share our knowledge for peaceful purposes. Now, it happens that we owe a courtcsy — a very large favor, in fact — to a certain governmental department in the U.S.S.R.” He looked at Nick quizzically and the lines deepened at the corners of his eyes. “To Russian Intelligence, in fact. They have arranged, through the highest channels, to send a representative to inspect the West Valley plant.”

“Russian Intelligence,” Nick said flatly. “Now I’ve heard everything. And my job is to see that he doesn’t go poking where he isn’t supposed to poke. Oh, fascinating.”

“Yes, that’s the job,” Hawk admitted. “It’s a little unusual, of course, but for various reasons we couldn’t turn down their request. You won’t find it unpleasant, I’m sure. They’re ending Valentina Sichikova.”

Nick’s face brightened. “Valentina! Girl of my dreams, love of my life! You’re right — that does cast a slightly different light on things. But how come they picked her?”

Hawk leaned back and bit the tip of[one of his air-polluting cigars.

“Because you two know each other,” he said. “Because they wanted to send someone we can trust. I myself do not, as you know, trust anyone, but as long as they had to choose someone it might as well be her. I’ve engaged a suite of rooms for her on the twenty-third floor and a smaller one for you directly opposite. I don’t need to tell you that, trust her or not, she must be watched at all times. She’s a brilliant woman and there might just be more in this than meets the eye. So you will treat her royally and watch her like a — ah, hawk.” He reached into his briefcase and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. “You might care to read this letter from Smirnov, which reached me through State. He was the one who chose Sichikova for this visit. He took this opportunity to write us something in the nature of a fan letter for our part in that Moscow bugging affair. Very laudatory and fulsome. It might amuse you.”

Nick read it. Dmitri Borisovich Smirnov was indeed lavish in his praise for Hawk’s department. But seemed sincere, and he earnestly requested that the man he knew as Tom Slade should be Comrade Sichikova’s escort. As head of Russian Intelligence, he was only too aware that the Comrade’s visit might cause suspicion in some quarters, but he was sure that Hawk and “Slade’ would handle the situation with their usual delicacy… and so on and so on and so on, with lots of compliments and wishes for good health.

“Very nice,” Nick commented, handing it back. “A bit pretty for your tastes, I know, but I would say that friend Dmitri means it all.” He squinted thoughtfully at Hawk, thinking about something that had nothing at all to do with Valentina or her superior officer.

Hawk stared back at him. “Well?” he demanded. “What’s on your mind?”

Nick reached into his pocket and drew out a letter of his own.

“I get fan mail, too,” he said, almost idly. “You recall Hakin, of Egypt and Abimako?”

Hawk nodded. “I do,” he said crisply.” So?”

“This reached me through the drop,” said Nick. “I always thought Hakim was a born AXEman and I left him with the means of getting in touch with me. I’ve had a couple of newsy letters in the past year or two. And now this. Thought it might intrigue you.”

Hawk took the letter. He frowned as he read.

It said:

Dear Nicholas,

A quick note before I go to the classroom and begin part seven of my course in the Seven Lively Arts. Details will follow at your request, but at this stage I do not wish to inflict upon you too much of what you may regard as trivia. Yet, I have encountered something which caused my crime-sniffing nose to twitch and my eyes to cross swords even more valiantly than usual, and I thought at once of you and your own talent for sniffing out the odd and apparently inexplicable.

Last night I attended a dreary off-campus party in honor of some even more dreary on-campus individual. I arrived late, deliberately, for I have no patience with those affairs, and when I got there the wine was flowing indiscriminately and tongues were flapping. To my great disgust I was buttonholed immediately by Doctor Wilhelm von Kluge of the College of Medicine, who proceeded at once to bore me with his miraculous exploits in the medical field. Then all at once he ceased to bore me. Soon he became almost as cross-eyed as I myself and the words spilled from his mouth. He is a surgeon, I must tell you, brought to Egypt by our estimable Nasser, and it was when he began talking of his recent carvings that I pricked up my ears and listened.

It seems that he is an expert in cosmetic surgery, a fact that he had not previously confided to me. It further seems that, over the course of the past few months, he has been doing a series of operations to alter the facial characteristics of a number of men who paid him vast sums of money for his skills. His greatest triumph, professionally speaking, was in the area around the eyes, and in the hormonal inducement of hair growth where hair was reluctant to appear before. In the course of his babblings it emerged that none of these men — some eight or nine in number, so far as I could gather — was disfigured in any way so that they actually required surgery. They merely wished to alter their appearance, and according to him he did so with unparalleled brilliance. I got the impression from him, though he did not say so directly, that they all knew each other and that the treatment of each was very similar. Some required more or less work on the nose; one or two demanded his greatest skill in the transformation of the cheekbones. But on the whole their requirements were the same.

I then asked him — as who would not? — exactly what they had looked like before. And then, my friend, he most regrettably clammed up, as you would say, and began talking very rapidly about something else. Nothing I could do or say would bring him back to discussion of his surgical brilliance. Yet, I thought I saw him glance around the room with a kind of nervousness, and, soon after that, he left.

I see that, as usual, my “quick note’ has become a chapter, and in it I have offered you nothing but intangibles. But I find they interest me strangely, and I shall pursue the matter. I see, too, that it approaches the hour for me to lecture to my budding crime-fighters, so I will leave you with this little puzzle.

The term will soon be over — Allah be praised for my criminologist’s holiday. You do not propose to vacation in Egypt this year? Alas, I thought not. But write me at your leisure and tell me what you think of von Kluge and his drunken ravings. In the meantime, my best greetings —

Forgive the interruption. A phone call from the Chief of Police. No class today; I am on call as a consultant.

Von Kluge was found dead in bed this morning. At first glance it looked like natural death. On investigation he was found to have been deliberately smothered.

I must go.

In haste,

Your friend, Hakim Sadek.

Hawk let the letter fall onto the table top and lit his cold cigar with great deliberation. He chewed it, puffed, leaned back and puffed again. At last, he spoke.

“You want me to assume that there is something more here than a criminal group at work in Egypt. Very well, I will dispense with a discussion of all such possibilities and make your assumption. And that is that this affair has international implications and might fall into the province of AXE. Am I right?”

Nick nodded. “It’s the nature —”

“Of the operations, of course,” Hawk cut in irritably. “Eyes, noses, cheekbones, hair. The eyes particularly, I’m sure you want me to notice. I have noticed. And the murder of the surgeon, presumably after he had finished his work. But immediately afterwards? Possibly not. No — after he was seen talking. Perhaps overheard. Oh, you’ve got me interested, no doubt about it. But we must know more — a great deal more — before I can take action.” He squinted thoughtfully and puffed again. “D5’s in Iraq,” he said finally. “He can make the hop to Cairo and do a little digging. That satisfy you?”

Nick smiled faintly. “You know it doesn’t. But it’s better than nothing. Only I don’t think he’s the one to make contact with Hakim. He’s not quite Hakim’s type.”

Hawk billowed smoke and squinted through it.

“And you are, I suppose? What do you want, Carter — to solve the blackout question, play host to Sichikova and fly to Egypt at the same time? I don’t recall that we’ve given you the title of Superman. You’re under orders. Mine. And you have been given your assignment.”

“Yes, sir,” said Nick, and scraped his chair away.

Hawk waved him back. “Sit down, Nick, sit down. Foul coffee always puts me in a foul mood. D5 can check, but there’s still something you can do. You trust this Hakim implicitly?”

“Unreservedly,” Nick said, straddling the chair.

“Then cable him. Use the regular public channels. Tell him that a good friend of yours will be in Cairo within the next day or two and will contact him to hear the latest news. Phrase it any way you like, but make it clear that you want all details that he is able to uncover and that your friend will pass them on to you. I’ll get the orders through to D5 myself and have him scramble Hakim’s report direct to me. How’s his doubletalk?

Hakim’s? He’s an expert.” Nick grinned, remembering. “So expert that sometimes I can barely make him out. But he catches on.”

“Fine. Then let him know, in your own best-guarded language, that we want him to find out — if remotely possible — when von Kluge finished his operations. The exact time and manner of his death. Who the men were or might have been. If eight or nine men have turned up missing recently in Cairo or vicinity. If von Kluge’s medical files are available for inspection. Who it was that might have seen or overheard him talking at that party. And so on. I leave it up to you to make clear to him exactly what we want to know. Now. Let’s get the Sichikova business out of the way.” Hawk pulled a slim file from his bulging briefcase. “Here is a list of the places she has asked to see in addition to the West Valley plant. Perhaps you can get one of your many female friends — AXE-approved, of course — to take her to Bergdorf’s and Macy’s and one or two other places that you might not care too much about. You’ll stay close at hand, naturally. Documents has a suggested itinerary for out-of-town sightseeing. You may use either your own car or one from the pool. Your expense account will be munificent, but I expect you to bring back some change. She will be arriving at Kennedy tomorrow morning at ten via Pan Am, and you will be there to meet her.”

“Pan Am? Not a special Russian flight?”

Hawk shook his head. “Nothing special. She’s traveling a roundabout route for her own pleasure and one of our men will be with her on the flight from London. None of her own. She’s an independent lady, it seems. And she’s traveling under her own name, without any attempt at disguise.”

“I should hope so,” said Nick. “I’d sooner try to disguise the Statue of Liberty than the incomparable Valentina. Who all knows about this trip of hers?”

The corners of Hawk’s mouth turned downward. “Too many people for my liking. Not the press, so far, and I intend to keep it that way. But the story’s gone the rounds of governmental and scientific circles, so it isn’t much of a secret. However. There’s nothing we can do about it. I can only urge you to exercise the utmost care. You’ll have two back-up cover men behind you all the way, Fass and Castellano, but you know as well as I do that their function is tail-spotting and not trouble-shooting. So you’ll be pretty much on your own. Your lady friend flatly refused all our standard security precautions. Still, we have no reason to anticipate trouble. She’s not well known outside of Russia — not on anybody’s wanted list so far as we can tell, and we have checked her thoroughly. So I’m fairly certain that you’ll have no difficulty.”

“Don’t see why I should,” Nick agreed. “I look forward to seeing her again. Now there is one dame I really love!”

“One?” said Hawk, and favored Nick with a smile that was almost fatherly. “One of at least a dozen that I know of. Now suppose you reach for that bottle of Courvoisier and pour us both a healthy tot. I know it’s a little early in the day, but I need something to take away the taste of breakfast. My God, look at the haze over this benighted city…”

* * *

Nick pulled the Peugeot into the airport parking lot and sniffed the clean, cool air. Valentina had chosen a lovely day for her arrival. No doubt she had ordered the elements to behave. The sky was blue and smog-free, as if doing its utmost to offer her a welcome.

His pass took him to the official greeting area on the border of the tarmac, and there he waited with one eye on his watch and the other roaming around to spot specks in the sky and cover-men behind him.

Like Hakim, he thought suddenly, whose eyes really did go in opposite directions and could drink in two totally different scenes at once.

He had sent off his cable to Hakim the Hideous, as Hakim liked to call himself, within an hour after leaving Hawk the day before. D5, by now, would be on his way to Egypt. And Valentina the fabulous would be landing in New York within the next ten minutes. Too bad Carter couldn’t be in two places at once. Still, Valentina was worth waiting for.

Nick’s eyes went on roving. A Constellation landed, then a 707. Two giant jets took off, screaming. Cover-man Fass was standing by near Immigration. Castellano was on the observation deck. Another jet took off. And then a speck grew larger in the sky until it became a streamlined metal giant, landing on the strip before him.

Valentina’s plane.

She still knew him as Tom Slade, the name he had had to use during that affair in Moscow. But even though she did not know his right name she knew a lot about him — that he was AXE’s highest-ranking operative, that he loved women, good food, strong drink; that he could use his mind as well as his fists and his killing weapons; that despite his rank of Killmaster there was warmth and love and laughter in him. And he, in his turn, knew that she had never in her life used a name other than her own; that she was one of the most devastating and spectactular and honest and wonderful women he was ever likely to meet; and that, in spite of her looks, she had a quick, sharp mind that had earned for her the position of Chief Assistant Commissar of Russian Intelligence, second only in rank to top Commissar Dmitri Borisovich Smirnov.

The stairs were in place; the great doors of the craft were open. The first of the new arrivals began to straggle off the plane. Then they came out in two steady streams — people laden with coats, cameras, handbaggage; people with smiles for the stewardesses and glad looks on their faces and people who gazed out uncertainly at an unfamiliar world and searched hopefully for welcomers.

So far, no sign of Valentina.

Nick walked toward the plane.

The two steady streams slowed to a trickle and then stopped. Still no Valentina.

He halted near the forward airstair and looked up. The first-class stewardess was still waiting at her post. So there was still someone to come.

Then the face of the pretty airline hostess broke into a smile, and her hand reached out to take the huge hand extended to her.

The magnificent Valentina stood in the doorway, making a brief little farewell speech of thanks. Nick gazed upward, feeling a rush of affection for this most wonderful of women.

Stood in the doorway? No, she commanded it — filled it, dwarfed it, shrank it down to the size of a hatchway in a model plane. Even the giant aircraft seemed to dwindle, so that it’s very vastness seemed to become a mere backdrop for this one woman alone.

When Valentina Sichikova finally began her slow, majestic descent, her eyes swept over the great airfield, taking it in with the casualness of someone glancing over a small suburban back yard.

Nick spread out his arms involuntarily, long before she reached him, and his smile of welcome almost split his face in two.

Her own face blazed with pleasure.

“Tomaska!” she bellowed, halting on the stair. “Greetings! No do not come up to meet me — I think these stairs will support me only, yes? Ho, ho, ho, ho!” Her body shook with massive merriment. “You know why I make Alexei wait and we come out last, my friend? Because I did not want to block the aisles. Ho, ho, ho!” She turned briefly and rumbled over her shoulder. “Alexei, do you have everything, my friend. No, you let me take that heavy bag, Aloysha…

Nick gazed upon her lovingly as she conducted a brisk discussion with Alec Greenberg of AXE’s London office. He was barely visible in the background, but he was there, a gnat guarding an elephant.

For Valentina was indeed one of Russia’s biggest women. She was immense: more than six feet tall and quite incredibly broad; wide, fearsome, bulging shoulders and breasts so huge and shapeless it was impossible to tell where her waistline might be or even if she had one. Her ensemble of sacklike blue serge suiting and boat-sized walking shoes suited her to a T — or rather to an O, which she most resembled in repose. But in action she was less like the placid O than a blimp in Russian dress, a tank with heart, a bulldozer with the warmth of a dozen human beings.

She continued her slow descent, and the sturdy stairway shook.

Agent A7 stood behind her, watching her majestic progress and sweeping the field with his keen gaze. Her baggage stood at the top of the stairway beside him. The cautious Alec, Nick noted, was deliberately keeping his hands free until Valentina had navigated her way to solid ground and her new escort.

Nick planted himself foursquare at the foot of the stairs and watched her coming toward him.

He heard the piercing bird whistle and the first whining zing of sound at the same time, and a split second later the sudden sharp clink of metal against metal.

With one bound he was up the stairway to the mid-point and shielding Valentina’s gargantuan bulk with his own tall muscular leanness — just in time to sec her rear back like a startled horse and clap a vast hand to her pudding of a neck.

Whip-crack sounds split through the air somewhere behind Nick as Valentina tottered toward him like a punctured barrage balloon.

CHAPTER THREE

The Vanishing Nine

Al! Get the girl inside!” Nick roared, and even as he shouted he was twisting his body around and grabbing at two enormous arms so that they were wrapped around his neck. Mosquito sounds zoomed past him and ended in metallic thumps. One of them skimmed past his outer thigh.

He heaved mightily, like a midget Atlas trying to rid himself of a world on his back. For a moment nothing happened and he felt an almost overwhelming sense of foolishness.

“Upsadaisy, Valya,” he grunted, his body bent almost double under her impossible weight, his muscles straining. Then he heaved again — with an abrupt and twisting motion that flipped the vast body over the rail and down onto the tarmac beside the stair. He followed it in one vaulting leap and hauled the fallen blimp behind the cover of a nearby baggage truck, hearing the crisp barking of Alec’s return fire and the thud of bullets into metal. Seconds later he was on his feet again with his Luger out, dodging past the truck and wondering why the shots that had started so high to his left had seemed for a while to be coming from lowdown on his right.

He was clear of the baggage truck now and out of Alec’s line of fire. His eyes scanned the buildings and the field.

Suddenly the firing stopped and people started screaming.

There was some sort of commotion on the observation deck. Nick caught a glimpse of Castellano bending over something. Then Castellano bent down low and out of sight. But the screaming was not coming from that part of the observation deck. It was coming from his right, both from roof height and ground level. And it was not really screaming, most of it — it was shouting, and the shouters were pointing at something he could not see.

Two assassins! Of course. He should have realized it at once. One on high and one below, and Castellano had taken care of one.

Where in hell was the other?

He edged past a fuel truck toward the shouting and he saw what everybody was shouting about in the same instant that Alec called out — “More to the right, Nick! Beyond that old Icleandic crate.”

A man was crawling under the belly of the Icelandic plane, his head and gun darting about in all directions so that he was covering not only his objective but the little knot of people behind him. They were technicians, Nick noted, with a couple of officials among them, and none of them was armed.

The man was planning his maneuvers well. If Alec fired he would either hit the plane, which would be useless and potentially dangerous, or he ran a very strong risk of slamming a shot into that knot of people. The fuel truck, too, made shooting difficult. So Alec was biding his time. And the man kept on crawling inexorably toward the baggage truck that shielded Valentina.

Nick cursed himself briefly for not having shoved her upward into the plane but he had had good reason at the time and anyway it was no use cursing. He dropped down low and started crawling, himself, in a quick zigzag that took him toward the tail of the Icelandic crate. Alec loosed off a couple of cover shots that bit the dirt low in front of the gunman; he missed by feet but he served his purpose, and Nick took swift advantage to duck behind the tail.

He could see the man firing back in Alec’s direction and then swinging back to look for Nick and not finding him; he could see the airport cops breaking up the knot of people and shoveling them inside the building; and he could see the cautiously moving figure that he knew was Marty Fass snakebellying along past the nose of the plane and closing in on the killer.

So now they had him. Once in the open he would be caught in a triangle and he would not have a hope in hell.

Nick dropped behind cover and settled himself into firing position. The thing was almost over, and then all they would have to do would be to find out who and why and what, and try to explain it to an outraged Russian Government —

What happened then was the kind of thing that happens when a well-meaning amateur interferes.

The killer emerged from beneath the belly of the plane… and a mechanic in work overalls appeared suddenly from beneath a wing and slithered rapidly after him, brawny arms outstretched to grab the fellow and wrest the gun from him.

Only it did not happen quite the way the young mechanic had planned. The killer was a pro. A brilliant pro.

He turned with the controlled speed of a wildcat and triggered off two incredibly swift shots — not at the mechanic but at Marty Fass. And got him. Marty dropped like a sack of potatoes and lay, twitching slightly, on the tarmac, and by the time he had dropped, the assassin had kneed the mechanic’s groin and twisted his arm in a savage hammerlock that made the young man squeal with pain.

Nick could hear the killer’s sibilant whisper.

“One move I don’t tell you to make, and you’re dead. You understand? Now walk ahead. Walk nice.”

The young man walked, his body twisted by the hammerlock and his face distorted with frustration and pain. The killer’s gun was jammed hard against his back and its message was unmistakable. And just in case there was anyone among the watchers who did not get the picture, the gunman’s body movements made it ominously obvious. His head darted out at all angles, like a striking snake’s, and his upper body swiveled in lithe, quick motions, so that his position was changing constantly — literally from split second to split second — in relation to all the people who stood or crouched nearby and watched him. And with each swift, darting turn he swung the young mechanic tightly around to cover himself, so that his helpless human shield would be sure to take the brunt of any fire. Any fire; because that gun rammed tight against the innocent back meant You shoot me and I shoot him and I don’t give awho dies!

The killer quickened his pace. He was almost running now, ramming and swiveling and dodging his way across the tarmac toward Valentina.

Nobody fired.

Nick let his held-in breath out slowly. His stripped-down Luger followed the scuttling figures like a magnet. If a brave and foolish young man had to die in place of Valentina, then die he must. There really was no choice.

And Nick had already waited long enough for an opening that might never come.

He raised the barrel a fraction of an inch and his narrowed eyes bored into his duel target. Like Siamese twins, he thought as his finger tightened gently over the trigger. Drop one; kill both. But maybe not. It was a chance he had to take.

Then even as his finger squeezed, he froze.

A vast voice boomed across the field and a huge figure emerged, with surprising suddenness, from behind the baggage truck — a target as big as a barn, with a bellow like an outraged dinosaur.

“You put that young man down at once, but immediately!” Valentina roared. “There will be no more of this nonsense —!”

Wilhelmina, the stripped-down Luger, exploded into sound and fury, for in that one instant, the gunman had raised his gun from the mechanic’s back and aimed it over the young man’s shoulder directly at Valentina, leaving his head profiled sharply against the morning sky as he bared his teeth and squeezed the trigger.

When he dropped, his profile was gone with the shattering of his skull.

Valentina rolled over gracefully, like an elephant taking a mud bath, and landed on her feet. The young mechanic fell to his knees, pale-faced and trembling, and reached for a fallen gun. The assassin lay faceless in gore.

Nick ran to Valentina. Blood was clotting on the collar of her blue serge suit but her eyes were as bright and lively as blue seas under a summer sun.

“Good shooting, Carter!” she roared cheerfully. “But I gave you that one little moment that you needed, yes?”

* * *

“Next question,” Hawk said criply. “A small point, but I am interested.” His steely gaze roamed over the small group of people assembled in his suite at the Hotel Pierre: Valentina the vast, AXE agent Alec Greenberg of London, and Nicholas J. Huntington Carter.

“How,” said Hawk, and now his gaze was fixed on Nick, “did Madam Sichikova know your name? It was my impression that you are known to her, and always have been, as Thomas Slade. And yet she was able to address you by the name of Carter. It seems to be something of a breach in our security — and not the only instance, merely the least of them. Can you explain?”

Nick shrugged helplessly. “Madam Sichikova has her methods. I don’t know what they are. Perhaps she’s always known. Just as we’ve known her name, and Smirnov’s.”

Valentina rumbled happily deep down in her throat. The bandage round her neck was like an extra collar and it did not seem to bother her at all.

“Ah, yes, we have our methods, Comrade Hawk,” she chortled, and if she noticed how Hawk flinched she pretended not to. “Once upon a time, when we had reason to ask you for your help, we expected you to send your very best, and of course we knew you had an agent Nicholas Carter.” Her benign smile fell warmly upon Nick. “So when the man called Thomas Slade did such brilliant work with us we did at least suspect that he was not Slade at all.”

“Suspect?” said Hawk. “But at the airport today you called Carter by name. By that time, you were sure?”

Valentina chuckled and studied a pattern in the carpet.

“But naturally I was sure.”

Hawk drew in an exasperated breath.

“But how —”

Alec Greenberg scuffled his feet and said, “Ahem. Ah, sir, I believe I — ah — addressed my colleague here as Nick in the — uh — heat of battle, sir. An oversight for which I —”

“May be hanged by the neck,” Hawk interrupted savagely. And then he smiled. “Madam Sichikova, I see it does not pay to underestimate you. But now that we have resolved that question, we have others of more importance to occupy us. First, there is the question of the complaint, which you will no doubt wish to lodge against us. You will be justified. I can only ask you to see it in the light of your own wish for minimum precautions. Second, the reason for the attack upon you. Your arrival was not known to the general public, few if any of whom would have reason to harm you. And because there were two professional assassins, we can be virtually certain that we are not dealing with the lunatic fringe. Therefore the question is Who? Why? Third, we must take steps to prevent further such occurrences. Either you must cancel your stay here and return quietly, or you must permit us to arrange a cover for you. If you would, for instance, change your appearance somewhat and take lodgings in a private home —”

“Ho. ho! Oh, no, my friend.” Valentina shook her head emphatically. “You think perhaps that I should disguise myself as the maiden aunt of Nicholas and stay with friends of yours or his? I can assure you that that will never work. If I am looked for, I cannot be disguised. Not me. Not ever. It is impossible. I answer your last question first, and the answer is No. I do not leave here, and I do not attempt some foolish disguise. Now I am warned. Already I have made several unforgivable mistakes. Ah! How angry Dmitri will be!” She heaved a huge sigh that seemed to shake the furniture, and clucked in self-reproach. “He will be quite right. But I will make no more. I accept that I am not private citizen, and I will take care. As to lodging a complaint, I have none. The fault was mine. I can assure you there will be no repercussion. You handle your American press; I will handle my Dimitri. No, I shall proceed with my plans….”

Nick left her big voice behind him as he rose to answer the signal at the door. When he came back he had a sheaf of papers in his hand and he was frowning thoughtfully.

“Yes? What is it?” Hawk demanded.

“Report from Castellano,” said Nick. “Fass in hospital, bullet in gut, will recover. Two assassins shot dead identified as inhabitants of village with no known political affiliations. Homes searched, large sums of money discovered in each, little else. But for this.” He handed Hawk a photograph. “Found in home of John Snyder, assassin number two.”

Hawk took the photograph and scrutinized it silently. Then he handed it to Valentina. “Name John Snyder mean anything to you?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Bought and paid for, I suppose,” she said shortly, and her blue eyes narrowed to sharp slits as she stared at the photograph.

It was a head-and-shoulders shot of Valentina Sichikova. Assistant Commissar of Russian Intelligence.

“From official files,” she said distantly, and her voice was like the echo of thunder rolling through a cavern. “Available only to Soviet Press and to our allies for official publications. You do not perhaps have copy yourselves?”

Her eyes were beady now, and searching.

“No,” said Hawk. “Believe me. We have no such picture in our files. This was not obtained through us. But it seems that someone made it available to Snyder — and what was the other fellow’s name? Ah, Edwards, yes — for a somewhat obvious purpose. Edwards, it seems destroyed his copy. Sensible. But it makes no difference. Evidence is clear. Hired killers, as you say, supplied with portraits of you. But why? Why you? Why here? To once again discredit the United States? Perhaps. But supposing there’s another reason. Maybe one that points more directly at you. You, Valentina Sichikova. Russian, yes, but individual also.” He waited.

Valentina’s eyes gazed into a distance that she alone could see.

“I would have a moment to think,” she murmured brusquely. “Give me but one moment.”

“It’s yours,” said Hawk. “Greenberg, you will delay your return to London and work with Castellano until we know all there is to know about those two men. Take these files into the other room, read them, and leave. At once.”

Alec nodded and left with Castellano’s report.

The old man was unusually peremptory, Nick thought. But no doubt he had reason. And the look in Hawk’s eye indicated that Agent Carter had scarcely lived up to his advance notices.

“Carter,” Hawk said quietly. “One more question of you. If you don’t mind.”

Indeed the old man was in a prickly moot!.

“Sir?” said Nick politely.

“Tell me,” said Hawk, even more quietly, “just tell me this. Why did you find it necessary to toss Madame Sichikova over the stair rail instead of assisting her back into the plane? I should think that the latter course would have been infinitely more sensible.”

“Well,” said Nick. “Well. Um. Well, you see, sir, the traffic on the stairway was — that is to say, Greenberg was in the doorway and so was the stewardess, and for a moment there the way was blocked. Yes, that’s it. There wasn’t a clear path so I did the next best thing. Not very chivalrous, I know, but—”

Valentina’s deep-throated chuckle rolled and swelled. Her body shook like a mountain of jelly.

“But now you are being most chivalrous, dear Nicholas. If you will not tell the truth, then I will.” Her smile spread over Hawk like a broad sunbeam. “It was not that the others were blocking the door, don’t you see? He was afraid that I would! And then what a target I would have made, with my… Then also you must not forget the difficulty of pushing me back up the stairs. No, Comrade Hawk. Your Carter did the only possible thing. You must commend him, not be angry with him. Ho, ho, ho! It was magnificent, the way he tossed me, I wish you could have seen it. Ho, ho, ho, ho!”

Hawk’s leathery face crinkled slowly into a smile and his wiry frame shook with silent laughter.

“Comrade Sichikova,” he said warmly, “you are all that Carter said you were, and more — in terms of character, of course.”

“Of course!” Valentina roared again. But when the boom of her laughter had subsided, her pleasant peasant’s face was suddenly serious. “I like you, Hawk,” she said. “Just as I like Carter. I think that I must trust you. And you must try to trust me, please. For I have a little bit of ulterior motive in coming here to your country. Not, you understand, to do you any harm. But I had reason of my own.”

“So?” said Hawk, and now the smile had vanished from his eyes. But there was no distrust in his reposing face, and he was a man who thought that trust was for children and fools.

“So,” said Valentina. Her huge bulk shifted uncomfortably in the undersized chair. “It is not easy for me to phrase myself but I will try. First, I am woman, therefore interfering. Second, I am Russian Intelligence, therefore suspicious of small things. And I was most suspicious of small blackouts and other disturbances in Moscow and the nearby cities that took place a year or so ago. Small, I say, because under our system it is impossible to have large-scale power failure — I interest you?”

“You interest us,” Hawk said tersely. “Please go on.”

“But then the incidents ceased. It was as if they had come under control. Yet, no one could explain them. No one could say how they started, no one could say why they corrected themselves, and no one could begin to suggest why they suddenly ceased altogether.” The genial, peasant woman’s look was gone from Valentina’s face and in its place was the look of a woman of intellect and perceptivity. “Then with the cessation of those events I noticed something else. In the course of several weeks a number of men left Moscow. Many people do, of course. But they come back. Those men did not. They left without return clearance. Ordinarily, that would mean nothing. But to me it meant something that two of them left a certain restaurant, another two a laundry, three of them an embassy, one a trade mission and one a gift shop. All of them left for what seemed to me most trivial reasons — and they have vanished into limbo.”

She paused a moment, her lively eyes raking across Hawk’s face and Nick’s.

“You ask, So what?” she went on, with a gesture of one enormous hand. “I will tell you. For several months I put my thoughts in the back of my mind Then things begin to happen in your United States. Many power failures. What you call smog. Much pollution, much more even than you people consider normal. Many strange things, too many of them impossible of explanation. I think back to the big power failure of November, Nineteen-sixty-five. Already I have noticed with interest your nuclear West Valley plant — I have liaison with scientific circles, and I indulge in little hobby of nuclear physics. Also cooking. But I talk some other time of cooking. Now, I am making point that I have long had interest in nuclear power, and therefore in West Valley. And when I am thinking back to the big blackout, I recall reading reports of where the trouble started. Not far, it occurs to me, from the West Valley plant.”

“Not very far, true,” Hawk interjected, “although several miles beyond the border. But the plant was not affected. There was no hint of trouble there.”

“Of that I am aware,” Valentina rumbled. “The proximity means nothing, perhaps. On the first occasion, at least, I think it very likely was coincidence. But what if it should happen again, and what if the plant is then affected? Does it not cause you concern that it happens to be in the sector of your country most frequently disturbed by power failures? Coincidence again, perhaps. But so many things happening lately’ — and her big hand slammed down upon a tabletop — “all these things are not coincidence. There are too many of them. They are too puzzling. There is too much at once. Yes? It makes for an uneasiness. I myself think — no, I cannot tell you all I think. It is too much. Flights of fancy, Smirnov said. Suspicions of a woman. Not my business. Yet, he, too, was curious about the vanishing Chinese.”

“Chinese?” said Nick; and Hawk sucked in a deep breath and sat back in his chair, eyes half-closed but his lean body almost vibrating with interest.

“Chinese,” said Valentina. “The nine men who left Moscow after our little “power failures ceased. As if they had been practicing on us. And had left us, then, for other pastures. Yes, they were all Chinese.”

CHAPTER FOUR

Hakim The Hideous

Agent D5 sat in the palmy lobby of the Semiramis Hotel and looked at his watch for the tenth time. Damn the fellow for being late, when there was pressing AXE business waiting back in Baghdad! And damn Hawk, too, for sending him scurrying off to Cairo like some messenger boy.

Now cut that out, Eiger, he told himself. The old man wouldn’t have sent you here if it hadn’t been pretty urgent. It’s not for long, anyway. One quick meeting with him, may-, be a little sightseeing with him for window dressing, and that’s it.

Agent Eiger settled back behind his newspaper and turned to the editorial pages. But his mind was on the coming meeting, and where they should go once they had met. Obviously they couldn’t talk here. Nor did Sadek want the meeting in his own home, which was understandable if there was something in the air. He wondered briefly if he could have missed the fellow, then decided almost at once that he could not. Hawk’s descriptions — Carter’s, too — had a way of being devastatingly accurate. As for Eiger himself, he was wearing the prescribed light suit and dark blue tie, reading the London Times and carrying a worn leather camera bag. No, impossible that they should miss each other.

Two blocks away, Hakim Sadek was paying his third taxi fare of the evening and wondering if he had not, after all, chosen the wrong place to meet when Eiger had called him. But it was natural to meet a so-called tourist in a hotel lobby at this hour of the evening, and such places were, in any event, more suitable than, say, a lonely mosque or Sadek’s own small house.

Hakim walked briskly part way around the block and into an arcade. Two minutes later he entered a side door of the Semiramis and headed for the lobby.

Yes, that would be Eiger. A little pompous-looking, as Nicholas had warned him, but craggy-jawed and hard of eye as all good AXEmen should be.

Eiger had lowered his newspaper to look at the trickle of people entering the main door of the lobby. Sadek was more than half an hour late. Concern was building in him; concern and curiosity about this man who was Carter’s trusted friend. It would be interesting to see what a friend of Carter’s would be like. If he ever showed up.

Maybe he had better call the fellow’s home.

Then he saw the man who was walking toward him with that curious shambling stride, and he knew it must be Sadek.

But Godalmighty! How could Hawk and Carter trust such a man? The description had been accurate, as usual, but it paled beside reality.

The figure that came toward him was tall and slightly hunched, and the face that seemed to hover suspiciously above it would have made an Arab slave-trader look benign by comparison. The flickering, unmatched eyes, the pockmarked, skin, the cruelly curved thin lips, the sidling walk, all added up to a picture of unbelievable depravity.

A clawed hand came toward him and a sibilant voice outraged his ears: “Feelthy peectures, meester?”

Oh, my God, no! thought Eiger. It’s too much.

Although it was a code phrase that he had been expecting to hear, coming from this evil-looking man, this caricature of a purveyor of filth, this epitome of smutty malevolence, it was indeed too much.

“Only if they’re sharp,” said Eiger, “showing all the details.”

Involuntarily he brushed away the hand that reached for his, as if it were as slippery as this man looked. The hand rose and clapped down on his shoulder in a surprisingly crisp and muscular grip.

“Hakim Sadek, at your service,” said the loathsome man before him. The tall, hunched body seemed to straighten, almost to fill out, and the incredibly awful face split sud denly into an even more incredible attractive grin. “And you are — you must be —?”

“Dan Eiger, at yours,” said Eiger, staring. This astounding man seemed to be transforming himself before his very eyes. He was still impossibly ugly, but he was no longer a furtive creature of the back streets; he was now a man who stood upright and foursquare, a man of culture and breeding and intelligence and… wholesomeness, by God! The change was indefinable, but it was there. Pock marks, thin lips, squint of eyes, none of these had changed. And yet…

“Friend of my friend, I greet you,” Hakim said warmly, with one eye on Eiger’s face and the other going off at an almost right-angle tangent. “How good of you to take time out from your trip to visit with me. I see you recognized me without difficulty.”

“Well — ah…” Dan hesitated briefly. He had no wish to be offensive to this preposterous man, and he could scarcely tell him that it would have been impossible to find another man so ugly. Nor could he say that he had been so thoroughly repelled, at first sight, that he had thought there must be some mistake. “Yes, I recognized you, all right, but for a moment there you had me a little puzzled. So help me, I can’t help saying it — maybe it was a trick of the light or something, but you did look a bit more villainous than I’d expected.”

Hakim laughed. “Unadulterated villainy is my specialty,” he said cheerfully. “Though sometimes the adulterous kind can be amusing, too. Forgive me, friend. Nicholas did warn me that you might find me not entirely to your liking, so I must confess I was having a little bit of fun at your expense. You are not angry?”

This time it was Eiger who put out his hand and clasped the other’s.

“Of course I’m not,” he said, and smiled.

“I thank you,” Hakim said courteously, and bent his darting head in a courtly bow. Yet, it seemed to Eiger that, even as he bowed, Hakim was swiveling his vagrant eye around the lobby in search of something he did not want to find. “It is not wise for us to stay here,” Hakim said quietly. “I have been followed much today, and my house is being watched. Let us drink together in celebration of our meeting and we will share news of mutual friends. The public bar, perhaps? Although it would be preferable to talk in your own room.” His voice rose and fell in a curious but calculated way, as though there were words for public cars to hear and words for Eiger’s ears alone.

Eiger shook his head. “You were in such a rush when I called that I didn’t get a chance to tell you, but I have no room, I’m sorry to say. This place is booked to the seams, and so are all the others. The Lotus promised me one for ten tonight, but until then I’m on the loose.”

“But what a nuisance for you.” Hakim shook his head and clucked sympathetically. “Then let it be the bar until we decide what we do next. But take all care, please, Mr. Eiger.

It is more than being watched. There was an accident today with my car that I think was not quite… How was our friend Nicholas when when you last saw him?”

“In his usual irrepressible good spirits,” said Eiger, watching a tourist couple pass by in the wake of a laden bellhop. “Full of the joys of life and rather bawdy messages for you.” In fact, he had not seen Nick for many months and did not really like him much. Carter was too much of a womanizer — for him, too fond of taking up with the peculiar characters he met in the line of business. And yet this friend of his was oddly appealing. Eiger looked into the wandering eyes and felt a sudden genuine warmth for the incredible Hakim.

“The bar, then,” he said quietly, “But not for long. I hired a car as soon as I got in today. I think it might be best to take a drive and talk in peace.”

“Good,” said Hakim. “That is very good. Perhaps along the Nile, and I can show you some of the sights. Have you been here before?”

They strolled together into the mainstream of the lobby, chatting amiably as they headed for the bar.

Until Eiger slowed and stopped to take a casual look at a carving in a showcase.

“There are two men near the bar door that I don’t quite like the looks of,” he said conversationally. “And they seem to be watching you.”

“So they do,” Hakim said, without apparently looking at them. “And not only watching — get back, my friend, quickly!”

One long, lean arm reached out and struck at Eiger’s chest and the other snaked into an inner jacket recess and came out with a gun. Eiger staggered back slightly but stood his ground.

“No, you get back, buddy,” he said crisply. “This one’s on me.” His craggy face was hard and the hand that reached for Hakim and jerked him off his feet was packed with power. Hakim flew through the air and slammed into a heavy chair, and the force of his impact was enough to throw the chair over and pitch him to the carpet on the other side.

For one ear-shattering, mindless moment he thought that he and the falling chair had made the thundering sound that reverberated through the lobby. But as he crawled to his feet and heard the splintering tinkle of glass and the echo of a gunshot and saw the smoky chaos around him, he realized with sudden horror that this time they had come for him with high explosives.

Come for him —!

And caught God knows how many other people because he had been fool enough to meet Dan Eiger in a busy hotel lobby.

He was on his knees now and jabbing his gun out from behind the fallen chair.

The lobby was a mess. The glass case was shattered into a million pieces and broken furniture lay scattered about like fragments left in the wake of a hurricane. Several people were lying on the floor. Some of them were moaning. Two or three were silent.

Dan Eiger was one of the silent ones. His torn body lay sprawled, face upward, on the floor, and there wasn’t much left of his face. But he had shot once before dying, and with deadly accuracy. One of the enemy lay dead only feet away from him.

The other…?

There were several people moving in the mess. But only one that was crouching and staring around like an animal searching for its hidden prey; only one with a snub-nosed gun in his hand to finish off the dying.

So. One man with a grenade and one to cover.

Hakim fired twice, with the whiplash speed and pinpoint accuracy that he tried so hard to impart to his students in part one of his course in the Seven Lively Arts.

His first shot smashed the hand that held the probing gun and sent the gun itself flying unreachable yards away. His second slammed into the gunner’s chest. The man lurched backwards, screaming.

Hakim rose. This one would live. This time there would be someone left to question.

He picked his way through shattered furniture and people, grimly noting the number of groaning wounded and the dead cashier near the pulverized showcase. The callousness of the killing clawed at his insides. By Allah, these people — whoever they were — would stop at nothing in their efforts to get him!

And he wondered exactly what it was that he was supposed to know, that he required silencing. Surely there was nothing that he had not already revealed to the Police Department? But he would find out what it was even if he had to stoop to torture.

There were other people moving now. His vagrant gaze swept over them and he identified them for what they were — hall porter, assistant manager, house detective, wounded hotel guests. The gunman lay where Hakim’s shots had felled him, possibly unconscious. But no, it seemed not! The body twitched violently as if in pain.

Hakin rushed to him through the debris and went down on one knee beside him.

Then his heart sank in sickening frustration.

For, it had not been a twitch of life but a spasm of death. And the grin on the man’s face was not a greeting. The lips drawn back tightly against the teeth formed the leering smile of death, the sardonic grimace of a man who has swallowed swift-acting poison.

Hakim swore softly to himself in several languages. There would be no questioning now. And yet it was most interesting that his would-be killer had been equipped with a suicide pill and had chosen to take it. It was not gangland’s last resort; it was the spy’s way out.

There were uniformed policemen coming in at the door and he would have to make himself known to them.

He showed them his identification and went with them to their Chief of Police, with whom he had spent most of the day on the baffling case of von Kluge. It was even more baffling now. Or maybe it was not.

He must dig, and deeply. And he must stay alive. Which meant that he must make a radical change in his approach to the problem, and that if he must pass information on to AXE he must do it in some other way.

But what could he know that might be dangerous to them? He sat in Chief Fouad’s V.I.P. chair and explained how he had been meeting a friend of a friend when the attack had occurred, all the while mulling over in his mind what it was that he might know. Everything — but everything — he knew was known to the police.

With the possible exception of one tiny little thing. Or maybe two, the second even tinier. They had the guest list of the party von Kluge had attended. But he and he alone knew exactly who had been in the room at the time when he was listening to von Kluge. Accounts differed, partly because of the consumption of alcohol and partly because party-goers are not particularly observant and partly because no one there had known everybody else. Neither had he. But he was observant, and he had a photographic memory for faces. He was known for it. And then, too, he was the only one who had heard each nuance of von Kluge’s voice and seen his eyes dart nervously about the room when he had realized that he had said too much.

Thin, Sadek, very thin, said Hakim to himself. But maybe something…?

“We must look for secret files,” said Hakim. “There is no evidence of anything missing even though von Kluge’s office was quite thoroughly ransacked. He might have records elsewhere. We must continue checking missing persons, for there are faces, if not people, missing from Cairo. We must redouble our efforts with embassies, with immigrations, with the Passport Department. We must make people think of faces. Von Kluge’s associates. His friends. His housekeeper. His assistants. All must think of faces that haye come — and gone. We must…”

He went on talking, for there was still much investigating to be done in regard to the murder of von Kluge. But with the death of AXE’s Eiger he had an even deeper personal motive than before to unravel this puzzle, and he himself was thinking of one face he had seen….

* * *

The square-shouldered man at the head of the boardroom table looked up and nodded a greeting.

“Ah, good to see you, BP.,” he said in a thin-toned voice that seemed to be inappropriately fragile for such a barrel-chested man. “You are late — I was beginning to think you were unable to come.”

B.P. put his briefcase on the table and drew up a chair. It was unusually cool, even for late fall, and yet there were beads of sweat on his brow and he was puffing slightly.

“So was I! he said, flinging himself down beside a tall dark man with an open folder in front of him. “This is a busy time for me. But I thought it best to come at this stage, before things get even busier. I see I am not the last one here, though,” he added, glancing around at his half-dozen colleagues.

“Ah, but I am afraid you are,” the chairman said regretfully. “Jones and Meister are both away on business and will not be back until tomorrow. However, I shall see that they have copies of our minutes and I, of course, will go through their reports myself. In the meantime we have a quorum. So. gentlemen, let us call to order this meeting of Canadian Ceramics, Ltd. We will commence at once with item one on the agenda.” As he spoke he reached for the compact black box on the table near him and flicked a switch. “Market trends continue to favor the expansion of our enterprise,” his high, reedy voice went on. But his pale, almost bloodless lips were motionless. One after the other, the men with him at the table slid sheets of paper across to him and he read them without comment.

Another, deeper voice filled the room, to be followed by yet another. It was a typical enough board meeting; each member spoke in turn and then the voices joined together in a round-table discussion. Yet, none of the men at the table spoke a single word.

“By nineteen-seventy-two, then, we should have eight factories in complete operation,” the thin voice piped confidently. But the face of the man at the head of the table mirrored the man’s displeasure. He leaned across the table and spoke for the first time since he had switched on the tape-recorded meeting, but his voice was a low, hissing whisper that reached only the ears for which it was intended.

“That was bad, J.D., very bad,” he hissed. “Why was I not informed of this before? You will have to go there at once and put a new plan into effect. And you had better make sure that it works. I will not take a lot of that sort at this stage — at any stage. And you had better arrange it so that you yourself will be free for your other duties. Pay what you must — but get it done and be sure that it’s done right!” His head swung in another direction. “You, B.P.” The sounds of the meeting droned on steadily, like a high waterfall drowning out the tinkling sounds of the river. “You. Is there no way that you can arrange to be away from there?”

B.P. shook his head. “It would look extremely strange, M.B.,” he murmured quietly. “My position compels my presence. Even supposing I were to have some sort of ill-timed accident it would perhaps be thought a little odd. But…” He scribbled a note and thrust it across at the man he had called M.B.

The chairman of the board read it with narrowed eyes. His thin eyebrows arched speculatively and his lips curved into something like a smile.

“But of course you must be there,” his thin voice tinkled.

“So true, what you say of accidents. And you, of all people — no, I cannot spare you. Very good, B.P. Very good, indeed. For that I think we might arrange a bonus. A special dividend.” He paused, and his cold gaze swung around the table. “Anything else?”

Silence. Heads shook. The take-up reel on the recorder was almost full. The man at the head of the table unlocked a sturdy leather portfolio and gave each man a thin sheet of paper.

Each read in silence, nodded and reached for matches or lighter.

The slips of paper flamed, then curled to blackened crisps among the cigarette butts in the ash trays.

There were only inches to go on the tape.

“Then the meeting is adjourned,” said the sibilant voice of the chairman.

CHAPTER FIVE

Lady In A Cage

“Ah, the great outdoors, how I love it, Nickska!” Valentina boomed. Her big hand gestured expressively at the wintry landscape of upper New York State. “I wish I had been in time to see your turning leaves, but even so, this is so very beautiful.” She turned toward him suddenly and her round face was solemn. “But you are not happy, Nicholas. You are much too silent.”

“Let us be thankful for small blessings, Madam Sichikova,” said the girl in the front seat. “Usually, it’s impossible to turn him off.”

“That’ll do, Miss Baron,” Nick said austerely. “One more crack from you and I’ll send you straight back to your cluttered desk at the O.C.I.” He sighed heavily. “Really, the quality of the help these days…”

Valentina chuckled, hugely enjoying the exchange. “You do not fool either of us, Nicholas. You could not have been more pleased when you heard that the delightful Julia was joining us. I, too, am pleased. But very pleased.” She leaned over and patted Julia on the shoulder, and the two of them exchanged the knowing smiles of sophisticated women.

The Cadillac skimmed smoothly over the road, heading west with the afternoon sun. The car was bullet-proof, crashproof, and almost bomb-proof, and its driver was AXEman Johnny Thunder. Nick was armed and so was Julia, his very favorite spy. Maybe Valentina was armed, too (she had been a little coy about that and he had not pressed the point). But they were surrounded with as much security as Valentina would permit. There was a plain dark car a little way ahead of them and a plain light car a little way behind, both of which carried AXEmen. And the plant itself was well policed by its own security guards.

Yet, Nick was uneasy. They had talked for one solid day — he and Hawk and Valentina — about the implications of the attempt on her life and the Chinese disappearances from Moscow. She had listened with great interest when they had told her about Hakim’s letter, but it had puzzled her.

“Of course! Of course! They must be the same men!” she had said excitedly. And then her brow had clouded. “But — I had begun to be so sure that the attempt to kill me could mean but one thing only: that there is something at West Valley that I must not be permitted to see. Because of course the Chinese scientists — and therefore their government and their intelligence people — know very well that I am here to see the plant. But it cannot be the plant itself that they want to keep me from. It cannot be a thing. It must be a somebody. But why should they be afraid of recognition if they have all changed themselves?” Her brow had clouded even more darkly. Then it must be a thing. But what thing?”

“I can’t imagine what sort of thing it could be that hasn’t been seen by hundreds of people already,” Hawk had said dryly. “But one thing is increasingly clear to me — you must postpone your visit to West Valley and make a secret trip some day.”

“Postpone! Some day!” Her enormous bulk had seemed to expand like an overinflated balloon. “I am here now, now I go.”

So now she was going. She had been adamant.

Which was why Nick was worried, because he too believed that there was something at West Valley that was dangerous to her.

Another thing that worried him was that he had not heard again from Hakim or D5. Hawk himself had heard nothing from D5 since Eiger had reported his arrival in Cairo.

“Enough,” said Valentina. “Enough now. You make this sweet day sour. I promise you I shall take the utmost care. Also, I am wearing my bullet-proof corsets. Does that make you feel better?” Her body shook as she chortled, and her hand came down on Nick’s knee in a bone-crushing grip.

“Oh, infinitely,” said Nick. “I always enjoy a broken leg.” Then he laughed. She was a target as eye-catching as a tank, but at least she was armored like one. He did feel better. “You might have told me that before,” he said. “Julia wears hers all the time.” He ignored Julia’s snort and jabbed a tanned finger to his left. “See those stacks?” he said. “Beyond the fields? That’s it. We’ll be there in a couple of minutes.”

Valentina looked. “Why, it’s like a little oil refinery!” she exclaimed. “Or something on a farm, like a group of grain elevators. Siloes, do you not call them? But all the land around it is farm country I This is not at all what I expected.”

“Well, I hope that’s the last of your surprises,” Carter said.

Their arrival at the plant passed off with a slickness that did credit both to AXE and West Valley’s own security force. The guards were courteous and alert. The occupants of the plain dark car and the plain light car flashed their ID cards and were permitted to station themselves at key points in the plant. Johnny Thunder hovered in the background, a concrete hunk of man.

Even the introductions were admirably neat and brief.

“Honored, Madam Sichikova,” said the president of the company. “My plant manager, James Weston; vice president, Barrett Pauling; chief of security, J. Baldwin Parry. I trust you will join me later in my office for refreshments. But in the meantime, shall we go?”

They went, first through the modern front offices and then into the throbbing heart of the plant. Within its depths there were no windows to the outer world but the pleasant glow of simulated daylight filled its every recess. It was streamlined, spotlessly clean and for the most part spacious; the passageways between the installations were wide and free of clutter and only the inevitable ladderways and catwalks were the usual space-saving size.

“We have tried to make working conditions as pleasant as possible,” said Weston, leading the way. Security Chief Parry walked with him, eyes alert, methodically checking the positions of his guards and the various personnel at their customary posts. Soft music played a background accompaniment to the low pulsating of the machinery. “The place was especially designed to avoid giving that boxed-in feeling that comes from working in enclosed quarters. You will notice the wide passageways leading off at various points. Each one goes directly to what we call a relaxation area — large, airy rooms with easy chairs and television sets and growing green plants and the like. The lower-level… ah… ladies’ rest-room facilities are also down here, through Passageway B. We have, as you know, a number of women on our staff, largely on the administrative side.”

“Good, good,” said Valentina, wallowing along behind him between Nick and the company president. “But none in overalls, I see.”

“Unfortunately, no,” Weston said regretfully. “The men would appreciate it, I know. But the women — nothing will induce them to get out of their short skirts and into overalls. I’m afraid Russia is well ahead of us in that respect.”

Valentina guffawed loudly. “I am not sure it is such an advance, my friend,” she said. “It may be heretical of me, but I still think women should be women. Tell me, what is the relationship between these two devices here? I am familiar with the one, but…”

Weston paused beside the installation and launched into a technical explanation. Security Chief Parry and the company president added punctuation points. Nick listened with only half an ear. Most of his attention was on the surrounding setup, and on the whole he was satisfied with the security arrangements. Vice President Pauling and Julia Baron stood beside him behind Valentina and the others, and he noticed that Pauling’s eyes, too, were sweeping the area between covert glances at Julia’s svelte figure. AXEman Thunder brought up the rear, but kept his eyes glued on Valentina’s bulk. Everything seemed in order.

“Shall we move on?” said Weston at last. Valentina nodded, still gazing at the miracle of machinery that had caught her attention, and the group straggled forward in a shifting pattern. The change was slight, inconsequential, but now Nick was half a pace behind and Pauling walked next to Valentina.

She beamed at him. “So you are vice president,” she said appraisingly. “You are a young man for so much responsibility. That is good. I like to see youth in the forefront.” Pauling cleared his throat. “Uh… ah —” he began. Valentina’s voice drowned out whatever he had planned to say.

“Now that is an interesting structure,” she bellowed, pointing ahead. “What is the purpose of it?”

A tall gantry reached from floor to ceiling, a height of some four stories, with its tower apparently embedded in the roof. Narrow platforms encircled it at various levels, and on each of them a man walked slowly, looking down. Within the frame of the gantry a cage moved up and down, like an elevator within an open shaft. The cage slowed as Nick watched and it came to a stop about fifteen feet from the floor on a level with one of the platforms.

“A security device,” he heard Pauling say. “More in Parry’s department than mine.”

The Security Chief turned to Valentina and nodded. “A multiple feature,” he explained, fingering his neat beard with pride. “Unique, I believe. A watchtower, alarm centre and fire station combined. Those are my men up there, of course. You’ll notice that from those platforms they have a view of the entire works. And not only that. The gantry itself extends through the ceiling to an additional thirty feet so that the duty guard — the cage operator — can observe every level of operations not only within this main building but in the grounds themselves. The cage is rising again now, as you see. The operator will make two more brief stops along his way and then emerge through the roof to scan the landscape. And then he will descend. The cage itself is equipped as a television control room with banks of monitors relaying camera information from every corner of the entire complex.”

“And not only that,” added the company president. “The tower guards also have control of highly specialized fire-fighting equipment, a sprinkler type of apparatus that covers every foot, every corner of this area. It can be activated from any one of the platforms as well as from the cage. Depending on the need of the moment, it can emit accurately directed chemical solutions, certain types of gases or simply water jets. And of course any part of the plant can be sealed off by remote or direct closing of a series of heavy steel doors, so that if there is any sort of minor fire or… urn… disturbance it can be instantly isolated and contained. Naturally, those are not our only safeguards. Merely additional precautions to the overall security. Our Mr. Parry designed all this himself. He’s been with us for many years, since the very inception of the plant.” He cast a warm glance at Chief Parry. “I must say he’s devised a most remarkable system, one that has never failed us. The tower virtually does away with the need for the more conventional safety and security devices, even for helicopter surveillances. But, as I say, we still use all such devices — we even have a pair of spotter birds stationed in the roof base, though we seldom use them. Because, of course, the tower overlooks the countryside for miles around, and in this relatively flat farm country there isn’t much that can’t be seen.”

Foolproof, thought Nick, gazing upward at the ascending cage. Unless, of course…

“So,” said Valentina. “Very interesting.” And her eyes, too, stared upward, fascinated, as the bottom of the cage disappeared from sight. “But what a view he must have from up there of this whole complex. And what a pity that I cannot squeeze myself into that little cage with him!”

Vice President Pauling gave a polite little chuckle. “There’s no need to,” he said. “We have an observation platform and we had planned to take you up there. If you will come this way…?” The group milled forward.

Plant Manager James Weston took the lead. “The access stairs and cage are on the west wall,” he said. “But before we go up you might care to take a look at this little device we call the Handy Andy. Andy’s a computer, of course, but a very special kind…” His voice droned on.

Once again the group changed shape almost imperceptibly as it shuffled on its way. Nick drew up alongside Valentina and felt a light touch on his sleeve. Valentina’s whisper was very low, a slight breath in his ear.

“I have seen that one before,” she murmured.

Nick tensed. “Which one?”

“Those are the stairs,” said the company president, breaking his slow stride and peering worriedly at Valentina. “Rather high and steep, as you can see. But there is another cage, as Weston said. Ah, just take it easy around here, madam. I see it is a little slippery. Extremely careless of someone.” His hand went to Valentina’s arm to guide her.

And again the pattern shifted. Valentina cast one glance at Nick and silently moved her lips. But in that moment Pauling stepped aside to let her pass and she turned her head away so that her unspoken word was lost. And then both the president and Pauling stood between Carter and Valentina in a small knot at the foot of a tall, spiraling stair that ended high above in a platform with a vast door set into its single wall. The second elevator gantry reared alongside it, the cage waiting at floor level. Parry and Weston stationed themselves on either side of it, and waited.

Nick looked at the cage and did not like it. It was even smaller than the watchtower cage.

“Tight squeeze,” said Julia quietly. “I don’t know that I care too much for this. Capacity, three people — or one Valentina.”

“Well, that’s it, ma’am,” said Pauling. “I expect you’d rather use that than make the climb? I’m sure you would.”

“Rather small,” the president said apologetically. “To save floor space, you understand. But Parry and Weston will operate the control from below while the rest of us walk up and meet you there. Is that satisfactory?”

“But of course, of course?” said Valentina. “It is not your fault I am large economy size.”

“One moment, Madam Sichikova,” Nick said crisply. “In fairness both to the company and to yourself, it isn’t wise for you to go up in the cage alone.” His eyes swept the vast work area as he spoke. The other cage, he noted, was back from its skyward jaunt and hovered at mid-height within its gantry. All guards were at their stations on platforms and floor level. Nothing could have looked more secure and serene. But things have been known to happen within elevator shafts, and Valentiana had seen a familiar face among people whom she had never met before.

“But there is room for only me,” said Valentina reasonably. “And I can promise you, comrade, there is no way of inducing me to climb those stairs. Nor of talking me out of going up in the cage. It is decided, Carter. Positively.”

Nick knew from experience that she would not give in. So. at all costs, he would have to keep Comrade Valya constantly within sight. But that was going to be difficult, because at ceiling height the elevator would go directly beyond the roof into its own housing. And for that brief period it would be out of sight.

“Then if you don’t mind,” Nick said quietly, “I’ll send Thunder ahead of us to the roof to wait outside the housing. Miss Baron will stay here below. I’ll start climbing, keeping a little ahead of the cage. And you, sir,” he said to the president, “you might follow along behind me with Mr. Pauling. I know you realize that Madam Sichikova is my responsibility and that I’m expected to stay as close to her as possible. Mr. Parry — I assume that upper door is locked. Perhaps you’ll be good enough to send a guard up there with Thunder to let him out.”

Parry hesitated. “Well, this is a little irregular, you know. I’m not sure that —”

“It’s all right, Parry, it’s all right,” said the president. “Mr. Carter’s position is perfectly understandable. Send a guard up with Thunder; that will be in order.”

“That’s not really necessary,” said Parry. “I have two men on the roof already and I can open the door from down here.” He flicked a switch on a small control panel at the base of the spiral stair. “You can go on up, Thunder. There’s an electric eye on the inner platform that’ll open the door for you. Close it, too, afterwards, but then it’ll open again for the next man to follow. You’ll find yourself on a wide observation deck with my two guards at either end and the elevator cage on your right. The door to that, of course, will only open when the cage reaches the top. Automatically, you understand. Madam will have no difficulty. And the watchtower cage, of course, will follow all our movements.”

Then let us start at once,” said Valentina. She brushed past Pauling to step majestically into the tiny cage.

“On your way, Johnny,” said Nick.

Big Thunder started up the spiral stairway three steps at a time.

“My, my,” said Pauling admiringly. “Do you suppose he’ll last the distance?”

“He will,” Nick said shortly. “Julia. At the elevator, please.”

Her perfume brushed past him like a soft caress.

The watchtower cage was rising slowly to match Johnny Thunder’s climb.

Nick watched and waited. Johnny climbed. The watchtower cage rose slowly, pacing him. Valentina watched impatiently. Julia stood nearby, waiting like the rest.

“I must say I find your precautions a bit excessive, Carter,” Pauling said softly.

“No, he’s dead right,” Parry said gruffly. “Mustn’t take any chances.”

Johnny reached the landing, and the upper door opened. The watchtower cage, still pacing him, disappeared from view.

The door closed behind Johnny.

Valentina stifled an enormous yawn.

“I’ll start,” said Nick.

He took the first lap slowly, one eye on Valentina waiting in her gantry and the other on lookout for the returning watchtower cage.

There was a sixty-second pause. Then the watchtower cage glided slowly downward and halted several feet above the floor.

“Now, Parry,” said the company president.

Parry pressed a switch outside Valentina’s cage. It rose reluctantly, as if unaccustomed to such weight.

Nick raced up the spiral stairway. By the time Valentina’s elevator reached the top he would be on the inner platform to follow Johnny through that door. He saw her only feet below him, rising like a hippo in a tank, and yards away, across the huge work space, the watchtower cage glided smoothly up its gantry, pacing Valentina. Pauling and the president were climbing up behind Nick. Julia stood below, oddly flattened as he glanced down upon her, with one hand on the gantry and the other waving gracefully in the air as if in answer to some question. Parry and Weston stood there with her, watching Valentina’s rising cage.

Nick looked across at Valentina.

He paused for a moment to let her cage draw level with him so that he might call across to her. But in that moment there was an outcry from behind him, and as he turned to find its source he felt his head swimming as with an early morning hangover.

He saw Pauling drop upon the stairs, his hand clutching at his throat. He saw the company president grab at the stair rail, miss it, fall and clatter downward. His senses swirled. Through the thick mist that he somehow knew was within him rather than outside him he saw Parry, Weston and Julia slump down on the floor, and when he tried to clamber up the stairs to pace Valentina’s rising cage he felt as though he were wading through thick mud that grabbed at his legs and filled his mouth and nostrils.

Gas! he thought frantically. Got to reach the top! Got to… Valentina… must get to the door…

And then the mud tugged at him, flowed through him, drowned him, and he dropped.

His last blurred view was of a massive female figure slumped grotesquely in a cage, a cage that seemed to climb inexorably beyond his reach…

* * *

The one man who had held his breath stayed quietly where he was until he was absolutely sure that no one else was moving. Then he gave himself a further count of ten, for safety’s sake, and looked around him. The safety doors were scaled. Guards lay slumped on floors and platforms. So did the Brass and the Very Important Visitors.

He smiled grimly to himself and took the one precaution needed for the critical few minutes to follow. Then he fingered the controls with his expert touch and went about his business.

Two elevator cages moved through the stillness of the gas-filled room.

CHAPTER SIX

Life Is Full Of Ups And Downs

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Hamilton Garvey. “And what’s more I don’t know anything about you. Am I to assume you’re asking me to put you through to the Central Intelligence Agency?” The First Secretary of the American Embassy in Cairo stared at his visitor with distaste and suspicion.

Hakim Sadek sighed with exasperation. American officialdom gave him a pain in the traditional place; in his experience nearly the whole damned lot of them were hide-bound, unimaginative stiffnecks. No wonder the Americans had so much trouble making themselves understood abroad.

“Once again, then,” he said patiently. “My name is Hakim Sadek and I am a professor of criminology at the University of Cairo. I am also attached, as a consultant, to the local Department of Police, and I am currently investigating the murder of a German surgeon named von Kluge. I have information which I have been requested to turn over to an American agency called AXE. Not the Cee Ai Ay. AXE. Ah, Ex, Ee. One of their agents, classified D5, was to contact me to receive this information. He was murdered even as we met. It is now even more essential for me to contact his superiors, his colleagues. I have much to report, and it is urgent. Make contact any way you like — do your own talking, scramble it, fry it, code it, use Hindustani or pig-Latin — but for the sake of Allah, make contact!”

Garvey pursed his lips. He knew about D5 — something about him, anyway. AXE had hot-lined an inquiry about the fellow’s whereabouts. It seemed that he was missing. And now it seemed that he was dead.

“But why come to me?” he asked quietly, still disliking this repulsive-looking fellow. “What makes you think that I can make contact at all? Oh, we shall write, of course —”

“No, we shall not write,” Hakim said with icy calm. “We will place a call on the hot line to AXE headquarters in Washington, and we will speak with Hawk or the agent classified N3, also known as Killmaster. And I know that you can make contact because N3 told me so himself when I was working with him on a previous occasion. Every American embassy, legation and consulate in the world has such a hot line for emergencies. Is that not so? And this is an emergency. Hawk himself sent D5 to me, and now D5 is dead. Now, will you kindly place that call?”

Garvey pushed back his chair and got up, very slowly. Sadek seemed to know a lot about AXE — about Hawk, N3, D5. And he was right about the hot line.

“Very well,” he said at last. “I will. Wait here, please.”

He stalked from his desk to an inner office door and closed it behind him.

He was back within three minutes, wearing a look of astonishment on his broad face.

“I have them on the line. Come this way, please,” he said.

Hakim followed him into the small back room and spoke into the receiver.

“Sadek here,” he said. “Carter?”

There was a slight pause, due perhaps to hesitation or perhaps to the process of unscrambling. Then a dry voice spoke clearly in his ear.

“Carter’s a little busy at the moment,” said the voice. “This is his assistant. Name of Hawk.”

At the other end of the line Hawk smiled faintly to himself. It amused him, for the moment, to play second fiddle to Carter.

But his amusement fled as he heard Hakim’s story.

About D5. About the face that Hakim had remembered. About the pictures, contact prints, found in a secret drawer in von Kluge’s house.

About the artificial hands.

“Any more threats on your own life?” asked Hawk at last.

“Intermittent,” Hakim said. “Sometimes I am able to work in disguise, sometimes not. Whenever I appear as myself things come flying through the air and people skulk on corners. They are after me, all right.”

“A pity. And no chance of turning tables on them?”

“But regrettably, no. They have the trick of instant suicide. Also they are more cautious now, operating always from a distance. Perhaps they are running low on personnel.”

“Perhaps. I hope so. And you say you have no picture of the tenth man?”

“No. Nothing. Nothing at all. I have no evidence at all that he is connected with the others. Only a little circumstantial pattern that I have built up in my head. And a memory of the way he looked.”

“Then you had better come here at once,” said Hawk. “Are you available?”

“I am packed,” said Hakim. He heard Hawk chuckle briefly.

“Then stay where you are. I’ll arrange transport. Give me Garvey for a moment, you’ll hear from me again within the hour.”

Hakim gave the hot line back to Garvey and went back to the other room to wait.

Ten minutes ticked by slowly.

* * *

There was a screaming in his ears that was as acute as a physical pain and a leadenness in his chest that weighed him down and choked him as if he had been buried alive.

Then through a wave of nausea he heard the running footsteps and the shouts, and he suddenly remembered.

Nick opened his eyes and pulled himself to his feet. He swayed as he clutched the stair rail and looked downward through a sea of mist. Guards were pouring through the passages toward the nightmare scene below. The sprawled figures still lay where they had dropped. Julia alone was getting up from the floor and gazing unsteadily upward at Valentina’s cage.

Nick turned dazedly and looked at it, too.

It was a little higher than when he had seen it last, but it was there, hanging immobile in its gantry midway between the floor and ceiling.

And it was empty.

He groaned involuntarily and swung toward the watchtower. Its cage, too, was pretty much where he had seen it last, and it also was still. But it was enclosed, and there was no way of telling what its occupant was doing.

Now the others were stirring — guards on platforms and civilians on the floor — and his eyes raked through them as if by some miracle he would see Valentina’s great bulk rising up among them. But no; she wasn’t there.

He turned and raced up the spiral stairway to the roof.

From far below he heard a voice cry, “Haiti” and Parry’s voice yelling, “Let him go — it’s Carter — oh, my God, she’s gone!”

Then he was on the landing and the big door slid open as he neared it. He stumbled out into the bright cold light of the autumn afternoon and sucked in his breath at the sudden shock of what he saw.

Johnny Thunder lay motionless a few feet in front of him. The blood clotting the back of his head was no longer flowing; the big heart had stopped beating.

And two uniformed guards lay sprawled face downward on the observation deck.

The first one was stone-cold-dead with a small hole in his gut and a big one through his back. The other one was stirring.

Nick raced toward him, running past a great double shed with one door open. Through it he glimpsed the shadowy form of a helicopter with an empty space beside it where the other one should have been.

That was the answer, then — or part of it. But what about those cages, still hanging down below…?

He flung himself down beside the second fallen guard. The man was shattered, dying, but still there was a spark. He groped feebly for the gun beside him and the eyes that peered dazedly at Nick were hard and hating.

“Carter of AXE,” Nick said rapidly. “I’m on your side. What happened?”

The dying expression changed and the fingers slid away from the gun.

“Hu… Hu… Hughes,” the man said faintly. “Cage.” He waved feebly at the watchtower. “Mad. Must be mad. Shot… us Ran… I tried to…” He drew a deep, shuddering breath and his eyes fluttered to a close.

“The woman!” Nick said urgently. “Have you seen the Russian woman?”

The head bobbed vaguely.

“When?” said Nick urgently. “Where? Did she come up here?”

Then it seemed to him that the man’s head shook from side to side; but he could not be sure, because the wobbling movement ended in a slump upon the deck, and the man was dead.

Nick leaped to his feet and ran. He was just about certain it was too late for running, but at the same time he had to make sure of the exact conditions on the multileveled rooftop.

Apart from himself there was no living being on it. But in the helicopter hangar there was a sense of warmth and a smell of fumes, and it was as clear as a printed message that one of the choppers had taken off within the last few minutes. He glanced at his watch as he made his rapid search of the observation deck and aircraft shed. It would be twelve, thirteen, maybe fifteen minutes since he had first started to climb the stairs and the gas had hit him. Hard to tell exactly, because he hadn’t been looking at his watch when the curtain fell, but anyway there would have been time enough for a chopper to have taken off and be out of sight by now. Time enough, too, for the operator of the watchtower cage to have pulled the switch or whatever it was that sent the gas pouring through the work area; then ascend, do his shooting — no doubt with a silenced gun — latch onto Valentina as she emerged from her cage; send both cages back down again to maybe gain an extra few seconds; take off with his captive in the helicopter. Captive, or corpse? Dead or alive, Valentina would be an uncooperative burden. Maybe there had been two men involved, the one from the cage and an accomplice on the roof, maybe waiting in the hangar out of sight.

He realized suddenly that he was taking it for granted that the watchtower-cage operator was also missing, was definitely involved. Yet, even if he was not missing, he had to be involved. Unless he, too, was going to turn up dead somewhere…

The roof erupted with activity as he stood staring down at a smear of blood near the open hangar door and talking into a tiny microphone in his breast pocket. “Fisher — up here on the roof as quickly as you can. Davis and Alston — get to your car, flash word to Hawk, Sichikova missing, apparently abducted by helicopter, request all-aircraft alert, then stay in car for further orders. Hammond and Julia — stay where you arc, keep your eyes and ears open for anything out of the way — anything!”

And then Pauling was at his side, face ashen and lips trembling. Guards poured out through the open door behind him, another three tumbled out of the cage so recently occupied by Valentina.

“Calamity, calamity!” moaned Pauling, and stared into the dimness of the hangar. “Oh, Christ, it is gone. The grounds guards said they’d seen it take off, thought at first we’d sent it up. Then the alarm signal went off in Control Center B and the emergency squad arrived to find we were sealed in. Out cold, the lot of us, when they came in, gassed like a bunch of —”

“They turned the gas off, did they?” said Nick. The watchtower cage, he saw, had arrived at roof level and was disgorging three more figures. Pretty soon there would be hardly anyone left below.

Pauling gazed blankly at him. “They—? Why, no, I don’t think so. Seems to me the ventilation system was already working by the time they called down the cage. By remote, of course. Because there wasn’t anybody in it. Wasn’t anybody in either of the cages!” He shook his head in utter bewilderment. “I don’t understand how — I mean, what could have happened to Hughes?”

“Hughes — that’s the cage operator, right?” said Nick.

Pauling nodded. “Top security man, one of the best. Why, he must have been snatched right out of the cage! Somebody must have been waiting on the roof — somebody must have —”

“Impossible,” I said Parry, coming up behind him. His neatly bearded face looked rock-hard, slit-eyed, angry. “Unless Hughes himself managed to smuggle an accomplice into the hangar, which seems extremely unlikely. Hughes must have set this thing up himself, for some unthinkable reason.” The second hangar door slid back as he spoke and he gestured to a man in pilot’s overalls. “You, Hunter — get that thing out of there and get going — fast! Guards reported seeing the craft heading north by northeast,” he added for Nick’s benefit. “We’ll chase. I’ve also sent out a State Police and border alert. You got any ideas?”

“Hold that craft for a minute,” said Nick. “I want my own man to go along. And I want a thorough search of all buildings, grounds and adjacent areas in case that business of the “copter is a decoy.”

“Some decoy,” said Parry. “Three men dead and one of our aircraft missing. But as you say. Where’s that man of yours? For God’s sake, let’s not waste more time. That a thing like this should happen in my plant—!”

“Incredible,” Nick said mildly. “Ah, Fisher — into the “copter and on your way. Come on Parry, let’s clear the decks and get down to business at this end. I want a complete roll call of all men who are supposed to be on the premises. And I want absolute security coverage of this place so that nobody — but nobody — leaves here until I authorize it. Incidentally, that other “copter of yours — was it exactly the same as this?”

“It’s twin,” said Parry. “Identical to the last detail.”

“Fine,” said Nick. “That helps.” But he didn’t explain how it helped as he worked with Parry to set the search plan into operation.

* * *

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” said the dry, crisp voice of the head of AXE. “But something came up that I had to attend to. Something that may make it even more urgent for you to be here.”

Hakim looked at his watch as he listened. A bare half-hour, and the man was apologizing! AXE moved pretty fast.

“A jeep will be picking you up within the next ten minutes,” Hawk went on. “It will take you first to a small private plane at a local airfield. That plane will take you to one of our own Army air bases, where you will board a jet and fly directly to New York. You will be met. That is all. Unless you have any questions?”

“No questions,” Hakim said.

But while he waited for the jeep he asked Garvey for the use of a mirror, and when he turned away from it the face he wore was completely unlike his own. In the game of disguises he was as good as anyone, and he had no intention of being rubbed out at this stage of that game.

* * *

“I don’t understand you!” Julia said angrily. “What the hell are you playing at? You’ve got everybody else out beating the bushes — helicopters here, border patrols there, guards swarming through the countryside, Davis and Alston zooming around in that jet-propelled car, Hammond lurking about the grounds, peering under every bloody pebble, and all you can think of doing is riding up and down these rat cages. Good God, I thought the least you’d do would be to commandeer a chase plane and get out there yourself. What’s the matter, Carter, you getting soft or something?”

The watchtower cage descended slowly.

“The interesting thing is the gas,” said Nick. “It can only be turned on and off from right here. So the watchtower guard must have turned it off before he left us. Thoughtful of him, wasn’t it? Considering that he might have gained himself an extra few minutes if he hadn’t. But lucky for us all that he did.”

Julia snorted. “What was so lucky about it? It doesn’t seem to have helped us any. Anyway, it wasn’t lethal gas.”

“No, not lethal,” Nick said thoughtfully. “But if we’d inhaled it very much longer we’d all of us been disgustingly sick. Continued inhalation might very well have caused death. Do you think he cared about the rest of us after killing three men on the roof and doing God knows what with Valentina? I don’t think so. And he thought enough of the gas himself to wear a mask.” Nick toed it thoughtfully. It still lay on the floor of the cage, as if tossed carelessly aside when no longer needed. “I wonder why he bothered taking it off. It would have made a pretty effective disguise. On the other hand, everyone in the plant knew that he was on cage duty so I guess he didn’t think there was much point in covering his face. So let’s play over what he must have done.”

The cage reached main-floor level and descended into the sub-basement. Nick moved a lever and they rose again. The television monitors on the panel in front of him reflected miniature images of the search throughout the grounds and buildings and he watched the efforts almost idly as he mentally replayed the gassing scene.

“Play all you want,” said Julia icily. “But you still haven’t answered my question. Why aren’t you out there doing something?”

“Doing what?” Nick asked mildly. “You’ve answered it yourself. I’ve got everybody else out there beating the bushes, as you say. Somebody’s got to keep the home fires burning. Me.” His whole being cried out for action even as he spoke, but something kept on nagging at him and telling him that there was no point in going off half-cocked on some futile airplane chase. The cage rose steadily and then stopped at his touch.

“It was about here,” he said, “when I last saw it. Valentina’s cage was opposite. By that time the gas had already started to pour out. Let’s say that I am Hughes, the killer. I put on my gas mask, and I halt. I wait for a couple of minutes until the gas has knocked everybody out. Until I am sure. I know that Valentina is out because I see her slumping in her cage. But her cage goes on rising. Or does it? I suppose it does. I, Hughes, can’t stop its rising, and anyway I want her on the roof. So when everyone is lying flat I move onward, upward.”

Nick touched the switch and the watchtower cage rose steadily. “I reach the roof, I stop, turn off the gas, and take off ray gas mask. I see Johnny Thunder with two guards, and I shoot them. Then I race over, grab the weighty Valentina from her now-open cage, and drag her over to the “copter. No — first I send down my cage and hers, because now that I am on the roof I have control of both the cages. According to Parry they can both be operated from within or by remote control from the main floor or the roof. So I send the cages back, permitting them to stop at mid-point between the floor and ceiling, and then I stuff the bulky Comrade Valya into the chopper, with or without the help of some mysterious accomplice, and I take off.”

Nick looked out over the roof. “I am a pretty clever man. Swift, resourceful, strong enough to lift an ox. Congratulate me. Because according to the roll call I am the only man missing from the plant. I have no accomplice with me. Which means that I either managed to smuggle one onto the roof from outside — which that snoop Carter is assured is quite impossible — or that I performed the whole miraculous feat all by myself. Of course, the impossible has been known to happen. But it needs a little help. And why, in the midst of everything else I have to do, do I bother with turning off the gas and sending the cages back?”

Julia’s almond eyes surveyed him steadily. The look of scorn was gone from her face and small lines pinched her exquisitely arched brows together. “You sent the cages back as a stalling maneuver,” she said, “to mystify the rest of us. It didn’t work because of that snoop Carter, but you’re over the hills and far away by that time so it doesn’t matter. And as for turning off the gas — maybe you have an accomplice down below that you don’t want to harm.”

“Maybe,” said Nick. “Maybe.” He stared at the spot where Johnny Thunder’s body had lain. Johnny had not even had a chance to draw his gun, and Johnny was a quick man on the trigger. But one of the guards had. Drawn, and fired twice. And died before Nick’s eyes.

There was just a chance that he had hit someone, and that the blood outside the hangar was not Valentina’s.

“We’ll go down now,” said Nick, “and try the other cage.” He fingered the lever and the watchtower cage descended past the platforms and the watching guards. “And now that you’ve suggested an accomplice down below, try this one for size: He could have been the one to manipulate the cages from the floor controls. And turn off the gas.”

“No,” said Julia. “No, that can’t be. You were the first to come around. When the emergency squad came galloping to the rescue every single one of us was still out cold. We’ve been through that before. They saw us, saw every last one of us lying there like stranded fish and then gasping into life. Only you were moving.”

“Moving, yes,” said Nick. “Not playing possum, while maybe someone was. Because if I had been the accomplice down below I’d make damn sure I wouldn’t be seen moving until half a dozen other people were standing on their feet. Come on, let’s try out the other cage.”

The guards watched them impassively as they left the watchtower gantry and stepped into the cage last occupied by Valentina.

“What goes up must come down,” Nick said conversationally. “Elevators, as well as other things. And we know from our long look at the sublevel where this cage comes to rest. But let’s try it again, ourselves. Up first, though, for the look of things.”

They soared majestically up through the roof and then descended. This time they did not stop at main-floor level but went down into the lower depths. The cage door opened into a passageway lined with heavy steel doors. Each one of the rooms behind the doors had been carefully searched, and no one had been surprised that nothing had been found. Here were the maintenance shops, the power-control room with its rows of fuse boxes and switches, the storage areas for equipment and replacement parts. There were guards down there, Nick knew, but they were stationed out of sight along the access corridors. All the doors were customarily kept shut, as they were now. And all were locked when not in use.

“Yet, there are keys,” said Nick. “And at some point during our knockout period the cage could have come down here. With a little luck and plenty of good planning, someone might have been able to haul Valentina out of the cage and drag her into one of these rooms without being seen. Suppose she did go down instead of up? Think of it, Julia.”

“I’m thinking,” Julia said. “And what I’m thinking is that all those rooms have been searched and she isn’t there.”

“So it seems,” said Nick. “And yet Valentina recognized someone. Not Hughes, secluded in that watchtower cage. She didn’t see him. Someone on the floor, with us. In our immediate group. It was only chance — I think — and the way the group kept milling about that made it difficult for her to tell me who it was. Goddamn!” He was suddenly savagely angry. “I must have been out of my mind to let her get into that thing alone. Especially knowing that she’d seen someone. But which one was it? Who could it have been? Weston, Parry, Pauling, the president himself? They’ve all been here for years — I know their histories. Oh, what the hell. Let’s go on up again and have that war meeting in the president’s office. Maybe the search flights will have come up with something by now.”

He ushered Julia back into the cage and pressed the ground-floor button.

“You know something?” said Julia, with a faraway look in her catlike eyes. “I did notice one small thing that I’m beginning to think was rather strange. At the foot of the stairway there’s a bank of little cabinets with pull cords, and above them there’s a sign saying, GAS MASKS. When I came to I saw that one of them was slightly open, as if someone had tried to make a grab for it at the last minute. But nobody said anything about that. And so far as I could see, nobody was close enough to do it.”

“So far as you could see,” said Nick. “But you were out for the count of ten — ten minutes. Suppose someone had known enough to hold his breath… Now that’s very interesting. Which one of the cabinets was it?”

The cage had stopped on ground-floor level, and through the metal latticework they could see the little doors beneath the sign saying, GAS MASKS.

“The one on the right,” said Julia, staring. “I swear it was open before! I know it was.” But now they were all closed.

“Then someone’s been doing a little tidying up,” said Nick, “that maybe he didn’t have a chance to do before. And what in the hell is the matter with this godforsaken door?”

He punched the button marked OPEN. Nothing happened. Across the floor, through the openwork of the gantry, he could see Parry and Pauling and a pair of guards looking back at him.

Parry took a step toward the cage and called out — “Carter! Is something wrong?”

And then the vast machine room was plunged into an inky blackness.

Nick mouthed a sibilant curse and flung himself at the door. It rattled slightly at his onslaught, but it held firm.

“How positively charming,” Julia murmured dryly. “Just you and me together in the darkness — trapped in a rat cage with a murderer on the loose.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Somewhere There’s A Someone

It was like an encore for the first alarm, except that this scene played itself in a darkness that was absolute, at first, and then sliced by searching flashlights. A siren shrilled and guards thundered busily about the place, not knowing what to look for.

“Here, take this,” said Nick, and thrust his pencil flash at Julia. “Beam it at the lock and let’s get out of here.”

He slid the small pistol shape from its waistband holster and aimed it at the locking mechanism. The safety catch clicked off and the pistol spat — not bullets, but a narrow ray of white-hot light that bit deep into the metal.

“Heavens, what will they think of next?” Julia said admiringly. “A little pocket-sized acetylene torch, no less.”

“Laser beam,” Nick said briefly. “Keep clear of it.”

Metal sizzled indignantly as the beam ate through it. The lock smoldered briefly and disintegrated. Nick doused the lethal ray and kicked sharply at the door, and this time it swung obediently to one side.

“Get over to those guards with flashlights and stay with them,” he told Julia crisply. “I’m going downstairs.”

His long, loping strides took him rapidly through the flickering ceriness of the vast room to the ladderway leading to the sublevel passages. Light blazed suddenly into his face and someone caught him by the arm.

“There’s no need to race around like a madman, Carter,” Pauling said angrily. “The lights’ll be on in a minute, so for God’s sake stay where you are before you fall downstairs and break your neck. We’ve had enough trouble since you got here.”

“There’ll be more if you don’t get off my back,” Nick said rudely, thrusting him aside. Pauling yelped and staggered back. “And don’t set any of your guards onto me, either,” Nick added over his shoulder, seeing one of the guards lunge forward, “or I’m going to wonder about your motives. Get him back!”

“All right, all right, go then!” Pauling growled.

Nick was already starting down the stairs, the thin beam of his flash piercing into the gloom. He spiraled downward swiftly, and then doused his own light as he saw the pool of brightness below that was moving rapidly toward him.

“Halt!”

“Oh, not again!” Nick groaned. The guard with the lantern-shaped flash had a gun trained on him. “Look — I’m doing a job, too, and I’ve got to get to the power room — fast!”

“Oh, you, I know you, yeah,” the guard said ponderously. But I got my orders from the Chief. He’s in there himself and he told me nobody — but nobody — goes up or down these stairs or through these passages until he says so. He don’t trust nobody, and that includes you, understand? Sorry, fella. But you stay where you are.”

“I, too, am sorry,” Nick said graciously, “and what’s more I don’t trust nobody neither.” His smile in the circle of light was sweet and cooperative, but the axe blade of a hand that shot out and sledgehammcred against the guard’s bulky neck was anything but. The man dropped with a quiet little sigh and a heavy thud.

Nick bypassed his fallen body and ran toward the power-control room. His pencil flash cut intermittently into the gloom, but only briefly; under the circumstances he preferred to glide unnoticed through the darkness. Through the passages leading off he saw other little circles of light and heard the tramp of feet, but in the corridor that housed the locked maintenance rooms and the elevator shaft there was nobody. He tried the doors quickly as he passed. They were still locked.

The beam of his flashlight played over the solid door of the power-control room. It, too, was closed and locked, presumably with Security Chief Parry inside.

He hammered on it thunderously.

“Parry! Let me in!” he called. “It’s Carter — open up.”

No answer. Nothing happened. He tried again. Still nothing.

He could have called a guard. But he was alone, and he liked to do things his way. Which was sometimes a mistake.

This time he did not use the laser beam but his lockpicker’s special, because unlike the electronically controlled elevator door this door had a lock that he could manipulate. He worked methodically, quietly, listening for sounds from within and from the corridors nearby, but he heard only the distant muttering of guards’ voices and an occasional footfall… except for one small clanking sound from within that he could not identify.

The door swung inward and he stepped cautiously inside.

Not cautiously enough.

His light beam probed the inner darkness for a split second while his right hand reached for the Luger in her hidden holster. And then the sudden swishing sound that whistled through the darkness ended suddenly with a vicious, exquisitely painful explosion in his head, and he saw a coruscation of shimmering lights where there had been no light before. He struck out once, savagely, with the Luger’s streamlined barrel, and felt it strike against something solid yet resilient; and then again his head exploded and he dropped.

* * *

Bright light and harsh sound pounded at his senses and he forced his eyelids open.

Lights blazed throughout the power-control room and in the corridor behind him. There was a uniformed guard at the bank of switches, and there was someone with him who looked like a mechanic.

And about time, too, Nick thought groggily, and as he dragged himself to his feet he saw Parry halfway across the room, rocking wearily on his haunches and holding both hands to his head. His face was bruised and bloody and his clothes were torn. There was a man hovering over him, possibly a medic, but Parry waved him off impatiently and lumbered to his feet. Then he saw Nick.

“Did you see him?” he cried. “Did you see who it was?”

“I didn’t see a damn thing,” Nick said shortly. “You got here first — what did you see?”

“That,” said Parry, and jabbed his finger at the massive switchboard. “Came in with a flashlight, had all the guards stand by and guard the passages so no one could get in or out, looked around and saw half the switches thrown. And not just thrown — damaged. Look at them!”

Nick looked. There was not much damage, but there was some. A strange kind of damage, as though some immensely heavy object had been slammed into the bank of levers and twisted a few of them slightly out of shape. A spanner lay on the floor nearby.

“Yes, and that, too.” Parry said, following Nick’s gaze. He was still in here, whoever he was and however the hell he got in. Don’t know if he used that spanner on the board, but he sure used it on me. Came at me in the dark just as the door swung shut behind me and I had my light trained on the panel. Skimmed me at first, caught the side of my face. I dropped the light, tried to go for my gun, grappled with him for a moment, and then — that was it. Spanner caught me, down I went. And then I suppose you came in just as he was trying to make a getaway.”

“Knocked out the stairway guard, too, on his way out,” said the man at the control panel. “Must know some way out of here that we don’t know —”

“What!” barked Parry furiously. “Why wasn’t I told of that at once? That means he must have gone up the stairs into the main —”

“You just came to, Mr. Parry,” the man reminded him. “And I already put out an all-stations alert.”

“I knocked the fellow out,” said Nick. Parry’s angry, startled eyes burned into him. “I had to — he was obstructing me. He said that you had given specific orders that no one was to be let in or out of here, including me. Now, why did you tell him that?”

“Oh, no, no, no, you’re wrong, Carter,” Parry said earnestly. “Of course I didn’t mean to include you. How could I —? The last I saw of you, you were stuck inside the elevator. Say… how did you get out?”

“Magic,” Nick said shortly. “Now, suppose we get on with the search and try to find this mystery man.”

“Mystery man,” Parry repeated, tugging at his beard. “This has to be an inside job, do you realize that? We have another Hughes on our hands — a guard, a mechanic, one of the engineers, any one of a hundred and seventy people. Christ, I don’t know who to trust! But all right, let’s get on with it.”

They got on with it. But the hours of searching and questioning turned up absolutely nothing. No one was reported missing — except Valentina. Everybody’s movements could be accounted for. No one was found hiding in any of the locked rooms.

There was one piece of news, and it was startling. Al Fisher reported it at the late-night session in the president’s office after returning in the helicopter.

“That’s right, in the Catskills,” he said patiently. “Obviously he’d had enough of a head start to swoop due east even before the alarm was given. We had hell’s own time finding him in all those trees, and it wasn’t the aircraft search that did it either — not to begin with, anyway. State Police got calls from local residents about what looked like a crash landing, and they passed the word to us. It’s a pretty inaccessible spot, so we had a little trouble. Here, I’ve marked it on the map.” He pushed the map across with stubby fingers. Nick barely glanced at it. By this time he was sure it would be no help.

“So we managed to land at last,” Fisher went on wearily. “It wasn’t far from a mountain road, and he may have been making for the little clearing that we dropped into. He didn’t make it. But the craft wasn’t in too bad shape, so it’s just possible that the plan went off more or less as scheduled. Except that he himself was in pretty bad shape. Like dead, to be exact. Look, I’ve been through all this before,” he appealed to Nick. “You’ve already got road patrols out. What’s to add?”

“One more time, Al,” said Nick. “As long as we’re all together I want everybody to get the complete picture. So the man was dead and dripping with blood. But not from the crash, you say.”

Fisher nodded. “Right. Two bullet wounds, one right through the gut and one skimming the side of the neck. Hours old. From the condition of the “copter I’d say he had control until almost the last minute. No bullet holes in the craft but blood all over the seat and controls, so it looks like he took his gut wound with him from takeoff.”

“My man on the roof,” Parry said intensely. “At least somebody put up something of a showing for us. But no sign of the woman! I don’t understand it. There must have been a car waiting on that road to take her off. But why didn’t they take Hughes?”

Al Fisher shrugged. “Guess he’d served his purpose. No point in dragging off a dead man. Incidentally, the condition of the brush and the road doesn’t prove anything. Somebody could have come through the trees; somebody could have driven off along the road. But it’s too dry in there to say anything for certain. And that’s about all I can tell you.”

“The face, Al,” Nick reminded him.

“Oh, yeah, the face,” said Fisher. “Like I told you, Hawk’s medics are giving him a going-over. But me, when I looked at him close-up, I saw a face that had been lifted. Tiny little scars near mouth and eyes, on the cheeks, and under the chin. Maybe surgery for an old face injury, I wouldn’t know. But they were there.”

Pauling gave a sudden bark of something that was not quite laughter.

“Hughes, with a face-lift!” he snorted. “What do you know! Why, I’ve seen the man around for years, and I never even suspected. None of us did.”

“Why should we?” the president said shortly. “It was his private business, I suppose.” His eyes narrowed suddenly and he turned a penetrating glance at Nick. “Or perhaps it shouldn’t have been.”

“Perhaps it shouldn’t,” Nick agreed. “Now let’s break this up and get what rest we can. You sure you want die first shift, Parry?”

The Chief of Security looked exhausted to the point of dropping, but he nodded vigorously.

“My responsibility,” he said crisply. “And I’ll have two men with me all the time. Three hours more isn’t going to kill me. Then you can take over. Take all your men down with you, if you like.”

“Thank you, but I’d rather have them at the exits,” Nick replied. “I take it you’ll give me a couple of standby men as well?”

“Sure will,” said Parry. “You’ll get a fresh pair when I go off.” He gave a short laugh totally lacking in mirth. “I hope they can be trusted. Still, I’m pairing them off as best I can and one man can watch the other. Same when Pauling comes On duty. And that should take care of the night. I’m off now. See you down below at two.”

He left the president’s luxurious office and headed for the power-control room. It was here, the joint session had decided, that further trouble was likely to occur if anything at all was going to happen. For the grim thought of sabotage was in the air.

The meeting broke up rapidly. Pauling and the president were to doss down on the couches in their respective offices, Julia was to sleep on a cot in the women’s First Aid Room and Nick would take a catnap in one of the “relaxation areas.”

Only it didn’t work out quite that way. The sofa in the big room with the color TV set was big enough for two, and two were using it. One small light burned dimly in the corner of the room.

“This is a helluva time to make love,” Julia said drowsily. “One large Russian dignitary still missing, one sinister stranger lurking darkly about the plant with God knows what evil thoughts in mind. And you —”

“And I have my own evil thoughts,” Nick murmured, feeling the softness of her lithe, bronzed body and loving her returning touch. “As long as we have time, let’s use it sensibly. I know our Valentina well, and she wouldn’t mind.” His deft hand removed a flimsy strap and Julia lay bare and beautiful.

“I don’t mind myself,” she whispered, helping him with a shirt button, “but shouldn’t we be doing something?”

“We are doing something,” Nick said softly. “And don’t you give a thought to mysterious strangers, Iuv. There aren’t any. It’s just a question of paying out a little rope — and waiting for the hanging.”

“Ah, so romantic,” she murmured ironically. “If that’s all you can talk about, don’t talk…

Neither of them talked, except to mouth the small, soft words of love and to speak each other’s name as if the name itself were a caress. They sought and touched and found what they were seeking, and then their bodies flowed together like a turbulent river.

“My love, my love,” Julia breathed softly, and her body melted under his. His hands slid over her and traced the velvety contours of her fluid beauty and his lips were fire against hers. There was a tension in them both that cried out for release and soon the slowly rocking movements and the tender touches became a frantic, unbearably delicious rhythm. He made it last, for both of them. He knew how; they had been there together more than once or twice before, and each knew how to thrill the other to the point of wild explosion.

Her dark hair was loose over her shoulders and her eyes were shining and with the sort of rapture that always made him want to give her the ultimate in pleasure, that always made his senses reel and all his nerve ends twang as though she was stroking each one of them with her electric touch. As now she was… but she was doing more than stroking and he was past the point of merely tingling. He was on fire, so was she; and they fused together in a long moment of soaring, burning happiness. And then they plunged, still joined, into a pillow-soft pool of release and floated languorously as if on a warm, receding summer tide.

They lay clasped together for a while in a silence broken only by their uneven breathing and the pounding of their hearts.

Neither of them had forgotten how they happened to be there, nor that there was a disappearance and several deaths still to be accounted for, but both of them were used to living on the edge of hell and taking their happiness when they could find it.

At last, Nick sighed and stretched.

“Not enough,” he murmured. “Not enough. A day and a night on some warm, sandy beach, that’s what we need. Or a couple of days in a meadow, rolling in the grass. Or a week or so in some nice, soft haystack…”

“It all sounds very public to me,” Julia said practically. “Also a little scratchy. I thought you liked beds?”

“I do, I do,” Nick said warmly, and trailed his lips over the softness of her breasts. “See how I like beds, and what comes with them.” He kissed her full on the lips and lingered there until his pulses began to quicken too energetically, and then he forced himself to roll aside.

“Ah, well, strange things are happening,” he said, “and I’d better go do something about them.”

He rose with one fluid movement of his whipcord body and began to dress.

“But you’re not on shift yet,” Julia said, watching him.

“That’s right,” he agreed. “And I wouldn’t be at all surprised if we were seen coming here together and I’m not expected to emerge until it’s time for me to take over from Parry. So I leave here well ahead of time and I do my own little bit of snooping.”

Julia started to pull her own clothes on. “What did you mean — there aren’t any mysterious strangers?” she asked, her slightly slanting, catlike eyes gazing at him through the dimness. “We agree there’s an accomplice in the building, right? And certainly there’s still something damn peculiar going on. Someone’s causing it.”

“Right, on all counts,” Nick agreed. “But not a stranger. Don’t forget that Valentina recognized someone who was with us. And kick this around in your lovely head, sweetheart — don’t you think that Valentina-abducting and sabotage are a little too much for one day’s work? Why should the inside man, the accomplice, want to blow the power — hours after Valentina had been snatched? Seems pointless. There wasn’t much damage, and nothing significant happened during the blackout. What was it for? And I can’t buy coincidence. So I’m telling myself that the two things are directly connected. And I mean directly. I think we can definitely accept the idea of an accomplice who is still with us. Let’s not give Hughes too much credit for swiftness and resourcefulness and all that kind of thing. Let us assume a man who used a gas mask on himself, who manipulated the cages from below after Hughes had done his shooting on the roof and taken off, and who turned the gas off when the “copter had gotten a good head start. Because, you know, if Hughes had turned it off, we would have come around a whole lot sooner than we did. Okay, assume a man like that, and I think you must assume more than an accomplice. Certainly you have a man who’s no stranger to this place.”

Julia drew a comb through her mane of raven hair.

“All right, so he’s not an accomplice then,” she said agree-ably “but the master planner himself. Yet, I wonder why he didn’t go with Valentina.” Her cat’s eyes narrowed and darkened. “You don’t think she’s dead?”

Nick was silent for a moment. Wilhelmina the Luger slid into her usual holster. Hugo the stiletto slipped into his chamois sheath on Nick’s forearm. Pierre the gas pellet nestled innocently in Nick’s jacket pocket.

“I don’t think so,” he said slowly. “Hughes could easily have killed her and left her body in the cage. No, there’s a more elaborate pattern here. Too elaborate to take at face value. I think they must have decided she’s more valuable to them alive than dead, so they hijacked her instead. For… questioning.”

“Questioning,” Julia repeated with a little shudder. “But where? And who, and how?”

“Well, I’ll tell you what I think,” said Nick, “and I’ll tell you why I think so.”

He told her, briefly. Julia’s eyes widened as she listened.

“So I think you’d best come with me this time,” he finished. “And if I get caught napping again I want you to run like hell and scream your lungs out. You ready?”

“For anything,” she said, and her lovely lips were grim.

The lights in the main work area were blazing. The watchtower cage moved slowly up and down and the duty guards on floor and platforms patrolled in double force, but no one stopped them. Parry had given orders.

“We’ll use the stairs,” said Nick, and they walked unchal-lenged down the spiral stairway to the sublevel. Guards greeted them with nods as they entered the wide corridor that housed the workshops and the power-control room, and again they were not stopped.

Two men were on duty outside the closed door nearest the elevator shaft. They stood to either side of it, alert and armed and ready. And they looked surprised. One of them looked at his watch.

“Two hours to go before your shift, sir,” he said helpfully.

“I know — I’ve urgent news for Parry,” said Nick. “He’s inside?”

“Yes, sir. With his finger on the red button just in case he needs us.” The man smiled faintly. “But he won’t. We searched first, no one’s hiding. And no one can get past us.”

“I can,” said Nick. “I hope he told you that.”

“Well, he did say that you’d be coming on at two, sir, but—”

“But I’m here now, right?” said Nick. “And the lady and I have business with him. So open up, will you? You can come in with us, if you like.”

The guard shrugged. “Okay, you’re the boss. But we gotta stay out here according to orders. Like he told us, we been checking on him at twenty-minute intervals — we just done one check — and like he told us we stay outside the rest of the time until he calls us. So he ain’t gonna like —”

“He will like,” said Nick. “You’re in the clear. Orders from Uncle Sam. So open.”

“Yes, sir. Jerry — key.”

The second guard nodded and thrust a key into the lock. Then the chatty one took his own key and performed a second maneuver.

“For safety,” he explained. “Gotta use two keys, separate ones, kind of tricky, you have to know just how — Hey, wait a minute! Something’s jammed.” He pushed at the door and wiggled his key. “Jerry, you turn that key of yours again.”

Jerry tried again. “Mine’s okay,” he said.

“Well, Goddamn!” said the talkative guard. “Something’s stuck here, for Chrissake!”

“All right, quit that,” Nick said urgently. “And keep your voices down now. Lock all right last time you tried?” The laser pistol came out of its hiding place as he spoke.

“Sure it was — what the hell are you doing?”

“I’m getting in there. With the lady. And you two are going to stick to your posts no matter what happens.”

Metal spat and melted. The door around the lock curled like burning paper. A thin rim of light shone out at them through the opening, then a circle, then a sphere as the thick metal piece containing the lock dribbled into nothingness.

“The Chief won’t like this,” the chatty guard said nervously.

“No? But you’ll notice he’s said nothing yet. Now keep quiet and stay here. Julia — come with me. But stay a few paces behind.”

The door swung inward at Nick’s touch. He kicked it as far back as it would go and stared into the room.

The bent switches had been straightened and repaired. A sharp light bathed every corner of the room.

“No, Goddamn, that’s impossible!” blurted the guard. “Why, we were here —”

“Shut up!” Nick said furiously. “You’re supposed to be on guard at this door, so guard it and keep quiet!”

He stepped into the room and his gaze swept through it.

Like Valentina’s elevator cage after the gassing —

It was empty.

Chief of Security J. Baldwin Parry had disappeared.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Nine Minus Two Leaves — Eight

And there was no sign of violence.

Julia closed the door and leaned against it.

“I suppose this room has its own little elevator cage,” she murmured.

“Something of the sort,” Nick muttered. “It has to.”

And he knew it must be a fairly simple device or there would not have been time for what had to have been done.

Yet, there was no escape hatch through the floor or ceiling. He had checked before and now he checked again. And still found nothing.

“If we just wait…?” Julia mouthed at him.

He shook his head. “Can’t leave him any loopholes. Got to find him where he is.”

There was a row of storage cabinets across the room from him, set against the wall. These, too, he had looked into with the guards earlier in the evening, and they had told him nothing but that the plant kept plenty of spare parts. The cabinets were wide but shallow and their shelves were neatly stacked with tools and labeled boxes.

Now he scrutinized them with care. Especially their locks. The cabinets were kept unlocked during the day, and when he had last seen them two or three had stood slightly ajar. He had inspected them all, opening those that had not already been open, and it was obvious that only a very small midget could have wedged himself between any of the shelves. And even then he would have had to push aside the contents. Yet, none of the shelves had been disturbed, and there was no midget in sight. But Nick had been interested in the width of the shallow cabinets — a width that brought to mind another less capacious opening.

Now all the doors were closed and locked.

And he saw something that he had not noticed before. Maybe he had missed it because the doors had already been unlocked and some of them open, or maybe because he had been so busy peering inside looking for an assailant he had not really expected to find; maybe because his mind had not really been on locks at all.

But now it was, and now he saw it.

The lock and handle of one of the doors bulged outward slightly, as if the door had been dented from the inside. And the outer plating of the lock was absolutely new. It gleamed, it shone. AH the others had the dullness, almost rustiness of several years of use.

Julia arched her eyebrows and looked questioningly at Nick.

He clamped his ear against the sturdy metal of the cabinet door and reached for his lockpicker as he listened.

There was no sound from within. He had not really expected that there would be. And yet there was a suggestion of sound from somewhere through the door, as if the cabinet itself were a listening ear or a conductor of a very distant, hollow thread of noise. Not loud enough even to be heard within the power-control room; certainly not loud enough to be heard through the virtually soundproof doors into the corridor.

Nick motioned Julia to absolute silence and went to work on the lock. It was indeed new, and it was as sturdy as the complicated locks on the main doors throughout the plant… incredibly sturdy for a lock to a simple storage cabinet.

At last, it gave. He eased the door open cautiously, and it opened as if freshly oiled. Rows of boxes still stood undisturbed upon the shelves. He pushed at them. Most of them were small and light. But they did not move.

“Why, they’re attached to the shelves!” Julia whispered. “Why in the world…?”

“I’m a bloody fool,” Nick muttered. “Should have realized it before. They’re stuck there so they won’t fall off, of course.”

The thin beam of his pencil flashlight probed the inside of the cabinet. The boxes contained junk parts, leftover material which could have very little use. Which meant, thought Nick, that the cabinet itself would need to be opened rarely, if at all. And yet it had been open earlier in the evening, when he had looked into it after being slugged.

Minutes passed as he made his probing search. He glanced at his watch. Eight minutes now since he had burned his way into the room. Well, that should give him time enough — if he could only find the thing.

And then he saw it. A small, sliding knob at the rear of the cabinet, half-hidden by the cardboard flap on an open box.

“Julia,” he whispered, “kill the lights in the room — there’s a switch at the door — and tell those guards out there to keep absolutely still and silent.”

Her eyebrows questioned him but she glided quietly away without a word. The lights went out, all but the thin beam from his flashlight, and from behind him he had heard the low murmur of her voice. Then silence. He felt rather than saw her come back to him in the darkness.

“It’s a door,” he murmured. “I’m going through; you’re staying here.”

He slid the knob aside. There was the slightest of clicks, and the shelves swung inward several inches. A dim and ghostly light shone through the opening, and he heard a thin sound like the echo of a distant voice. And now that the false back of the cabinet was open so that its edge was revealed, he could see the marks upon it — as though someone had levered it open, literally beaten it open, from the other side.

It was the one last answer that he needed. He knew for certain, now, how and why the power had gone out. But how ironic that he should have been trapped in an elevator cage!

He pushed the shelf-door back, stepped into the wide but shallow cabinet, and looked down into space.

There was a crude ladderway leading downward toward the glow of light, and at its foot there was a narrow passageway through which a brighter light spilled.

A smell of raw earth rose to meet his nostrils as he descended. But what interested him more than anything was the one stair that was splintered as if by a sudden heavy weight, and the fragment of dark cloth that clung to one of the splinters.

He reached bottom. There was no time now, nor any need, to inspect the scuff marks in the dirt at the foot of the ladder. Someone had lain there, and someone had risen, but that no longer mattered. Only the sounds filtering through the lighted passageway could matter to him now… two voices, murmuring, both of them deep and low.

Nick padded silently toward the brightness and stopped where the passage widened into a small crude room occupied by the two people who were murmuring to each other.

One was Comrade Valentina Sichikova of Russian Intelligence.

The other was J. Baldwin Parry, Chief of West Valley Security.

“That is good, Comrade, very good,” said Parry, and his voice was almost loving. “So you told them about the nine of us yes? Ah, so. That was only natural. But what about this Egyptian you say has certain dangerous information — what is his name, do you recall?”

Valentina’s wide features wobbled sideways in an expression of regret.

“Not now,” she said. “Not now. But wait — it will come to me. Let me think a moment. Patience, Comrade. Patience.”

For one blinding, awful moment Nick’s faith hit bottom. She, Valentina — his Valentina — had set this whole thing up to blab to one of the Nine….

And then Valentina moved and Parry moved with her, and Nick cursed himself for a doubting fool.

Her arms were tied behind her back and there was a heavy chain around her ankles. And Parry had a hypodermic needle in his hand.

“I have no time for patience, Comrade,” Parry said softly. “I cannot believe your elephant’s memory has failed you. We fight the same fight, your people and mine. We must co-operate. I must know who else suspects anything about us. I must know who there is to recognize us. I must know this man’s name and where he is. Time is short — I must know, I must know, I must know! Who is he?”

Valentina yawned prodigiously. Her eyes opened suddenly in a bright and beady stare. “No, you are no Comrade, and our fight is not the same as yours. There is a lake nearby, you Chinese devil. I say go jump in it!”

Her bound feet lashed out and struck solidly against Parry’s crouching form. He snarled like a dog as he stumbled back and struck out viciously with the thin whip in his left hand.

“Fat bitch! I have other methods — drugs to make you scream for mercy, but you will not even scream because that great gawping mouth of yours —”

“Silence, pig!” Valentina roared, and this time her huge body moved like a battering ram and slammed hard into Parry.

Neither of them saw Nick’s flying tackle — but Parry felt the steel-trap grip around his lower body as he staggered back, spitting with rage, from Valentina’s ramrod blow. He dropped on the crude earth floor like a sack of ballast.

“Ho, ho, ho! That was pretty, Nickska!” Valentina roared.

But Parry was not finished. He writhed like an outraged python in Nick’s clutch, and his digging, clawing hands were the hands of a man well-trained in the art of killing.

They rolled over together. Nick slammed an axe blade of a punch at Parry’s temple and found raw earth instead as Parry squirmed aside. Nick caught at the wrist that came at him and twisted savagely, hauling himself to his feet as he tightened the armlock until Party dangled over his shoulder like a drunk being hauled home after too much party. Then something snapped. Parry yelped shrilly and Nick let him drop, slicing a neck punch at him on his way down. He lay flat, like a man out for the count, and Nick’s foot arced through the air in what should have been the knockout chin kick.

But Parry was quick. You had to give him that. He lurched aside and one hand snaked deep into a pocket, and then there was a sharp bark of sound and a smell of burning cloth. Nick felt the bullet crease his thigh, and then he jumped — hard down on Parry’s fallen form, hard down on the one hand in the pocket. This time his kick went straight and true. Parry’s head snapped back and he gave a sort of belch, and then the man was silent.

Nick took a deep breath and turned to Valentina.

“Thank God,” he said, and knelt beside her with Hugo in his hand. “Let’s get these cords off you and onto him.”

“Thank you,” said Valentina simply. “I knew that you would come, my friend.”

Her clothes were torn and covered with dirt; her face and arms were bloody. But she smiled, and when her arms were free she put them lightly around him and kissed him on the cheek.

“It was my fault, Nick. The cage, I had to go up in it, because I felt something was bound to happen then and I was most curious to know what it would be. And I made much trouble for you. I am so sorry.”

“Not your fault,” he said, twisting cords around Parry’s wrists. “It was planned from the beginning. Parry would have managed something — he and his comrade in the cage.”

“Ah! The watchtower cage,” said Valentina, realization dawning. “So there was another one. But this one — this one, of course, was the one I recognized.” Her pudgy hands stroked over Parry’s face, roved over his eyebrows and underneath his beard. “Of course, I was not sure at first,” she said. “But here are scars. Do you see them? This man’s face was once a little different. Not too very different, of course, or they would not have chosen him, nor would I have known him. But I very much suspect that the real J. Baldwin Parry was killed some months ago. This man is Chang Ching-Lung — who left Moscow about a year ago.”

“Is that so?” Nick said softly. His fingers poked around in Parry’s slack-jawed mouth for the escape pill he suspected might be there, but there was nothing. “Well, he brought a friend with him, scarred in much the same way. But he’s no longer with us.” He told her, briefly, about the man called Hughes while he searched through Parry’s pockets, about the decoy helicopter flight and about the gassing. “So I was pretty sure,” he went on, “that you had been brought down, not up. And after the business of the power failure I was almost positive. Parry, I figured, was the only man who could have slugged me with that spanner. Easy enough for him to lie down and pretend he had been hit, just the. way he pretended he’d been gassed. The way I saw it, you’d been dumped in here and hidden away somehow, then gotten free to throw the switches.”

Valentina grinned. “So you got my signal. I thought that you would understand. I was only afraid that you might not still be in the plant, that you had perhaps taken off on some wild-duck chase…

“Goose chase,” Nick corrected automatically, staring at the small rectangle of stiff paper in his hand.-

“So, goose chase. But anyway you were still here. Next thing, though, Chang-Parry bursts into the power room and I am still so groggy from his dope, also partly tied, that I cannot fight back in my usual style. We fall together against the switches and some of them I bend. Then comes his hypodermic needle and — whoof! Out I go again, and I suppose he drops me down those stairs just before you got here. So that part is over now. But tell me, Nickska — why were you so sure that I did not take off in the helicopter?”

Nick chuckled softly. “Valentina, honey, I saw its twin and I just had to know. I don’t know what power in the world could have squeezed you into that little spotter craft through its regular man-sized hatchway. It was too small for you, that’s all.”

“Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho!” Valentina slapped her thigh delightedly. “But what is that little paper you have there in your hand?”

“Airline ticket,” Nick said slowly. “Yesterday’s date. Montreal to Buffalo.”

“Yesterday,” Valentina rumbled. “Montreal. Yes, that is quite interesting…. Someone comes?”

“I come,” said Julia from the dimness of the dirt passage. She moved into the light and beamed at Valentina. “Greetings, Comrade,” she said warmly, “I’ll tell you later how very glad I am to see you. But in the meantime, Carter, we have a minor crisis on our hands. People are milling about in the control room demanding to come down here. Shall I hold them off with my trusty derringer, or should I let them in? There’s half a dozen guards, all brandishing their guns; there’s Weston, Pauling and our own Charley Hammond. All looking very grim and white around the gills.”

“For God’s sake, not all of them,” Nick said, rising from Parry’s prone body. “Weston, Hammond, and one of the guards. There’s no room for any more. And have someone rouse the medic, while you’re at it.”

“Yes, sir,” said Julia smartly, and vanished down the corridor.

Parry’s body suddenly jerked to life. His head darted sideways and his mouth opened wide in a biting movement.

Nick whirled and kicked out savagely at Parry’s head.

But Parry’s teeth were already clamped on one corner of his shirt collar and they fastened there with the bite of a mad dog. Nick fell on him and wrenched with desperate strength. The collar tore in Parry’s teeth, the corner came off in his mouth. Nick’s fist slammed hard against his cheek and the jaw opened fractionally; and as it did, Nick fastened one hand tight around the man’s throat and thrust his other roughly between the clamping teeth.

There was a little gurgle from Parry as a tiny crunching sound came from inside his mouth.

His voice was muffled, but the words were clear enough.

Too late, too late,” he mumbled thickly, and threw his head back galvanically with Nick’s hands still clawing at him. His face twisted hideously; he jerked, and then he slumped back, dead.

Nick pulled himself away and his arms dropped to his sides. There was no point in saying anything, but his face mirrored his despair and self-contempt.

Valentina sighed with gigantic disappointment, but the look she turned on Nick was one of sympathy and affection. “It is a loss in one way,” she said softly. “But still we have gained much. Think — two down, and only seven to go.”

“Only seven,” Nick said bitterly. “And he could have told us where to find them.”

“I think he would not have,” said Valentina gently.

Feet clumped down the passageway and three men looked in on them. The chatty guard, Plant Manager Weston, and AXE’s Charley Hammond.

“For the love of Christ, what’ve you done to Parry?” Weston cried.

“It’s not Parry,” said Nick. “I’ll explain later. At least we have Madam Sichikova back with us. Charley — you have news?”

For he had not posted his men at the exits as he had said he would; instead he had issued quiet instructions that they search the plant with Weston only as their guide. Even if Weston could not be trusted, either, he would have to show them everything they asked to see.

Charley Hammond nodded. “News, all right,” he said tightly. “Bad news. Weston can tell you better than I how much is missing, but this much I can say — there’s enough uranium and plutonium missing to blow up the entire world a dozen times and take the moon with it. If it’s ever used that way. If not — there’s helluva lot of radioactive material on the loose somewhere.”

“It’s disastrous, unthinkable!” Weston burst out, and the guard looked on open-mouthed and wide-eyed. “Someone must have been systematically stealing it in special.containers. We didn’t notice it before — we keep it in that row of steel and concrete chambers that I showed you earlier, and we don’t use them all at once. Chambers A and B are the ones we’ve been using for the last few months. But C and D and E we haven’t touched; we haven’t needed to. They should be full — but they’re practically empty! But how — why — who? I don’t understand. The thing’s impossible!”

“With a couple of traitors in your midst, and maybe more than a couple,” Nick said grimly, “and a pair of helicopter! on the roof, and the phony Parry with all the freedom in the world to come and go, I don’t think it’s so impossible. You’ve told the president?”

“Yes. God, he’s running round in circles,” Weston said feverishly. “Calling New York, Washington, his wife, the bloody lot.”

“That’s got to be stopped at once,” Nick said sharply. “There’ll be a national panic before he’s through. Let’s get the hell out of this dungeon and knock some sense into his head. Hammond — you stay down here with Julia and search around to see if there aren’t any other hidden doors or stolen supplies of God knows what. And I want to impress on the lot of you — each and every one of you, in this room and anywhere else in the plant — that not a word of what’s happened here must be permitted to leak out. Not a word. Least of all, about the missing material. Get me? Okay, let’s go up and’ make sure the president understands that too… and makes it an order. Nobody, nobody, is going to talk.”

* * *

But somebody did.

The first to open his mouth was a talkative guard named Brown, Joe to his buddies — and he had plenty of them. When he reached his home after going off shift at two that morning he woke his wife and told her all about it. After all, she was his wife, and a wife is to be talked to, right?

Hazel Brown could scarcely wait until morning to call her very best friend. So what could hurt, telling just one very good friend? And who could keep such startling news to herself?

“Ginnie! You know what? There’s been the most shocking robbery at the plant. Not money. Uranium! Plutonium! Honey, do you realize that’s radioactive material and nobody knows where it went. And do you know what else….”

Joe woke late and took his car for a tune-up at his favorite service station. It was his favorite because it was run by an old pal of his, an ex-guard at West Valley, and he couldn’t see any harm in telling old Max about it as long as he swore him to secrecy….

Ginnie Nelson whispered something to her neighbor over the back fence….

Martha Ryan had a party line….

Max had a brother who ran a saloon….

None of them knew that several hours earlier, in California, a small boy had picked up a wooden box in a parking lot and played with it before his big brother came along and took it away from him and turned it over to the police, nor that the police had turned it over to experts who viewed it with great alarm.

Neither did they know about the tin box that had been planted in a Denver hospital, or about the patients who were slowly dying without knowing it themselves. The patients, and the doctors, and the nurses.

Nor did Nick know about any of that until much later.

At the first light of the morning after the events at West Valley he was driving back to New York at breakneck speed. Valentina slept soundly in the back seat; Julia and Charley Hammond talked together in low voices. There was an AXE car ahead, an AXE car in front, an AXE helicopter overhead and chaos back at the plant.

The signal on the dashboard beeped.

Nick flicked the switch. “Carter. Come in,” he said.

“Hawk, here,” said the answering voice. “Much of what I have to say to you will keep until you’re sufficiently rested. And I’ve got plenty to say to you, N3, believe me. But right now I have someone else with me who wants to talk to you. Go ahead, H19.”

H19? Nick thought. Now what the hell? There is no H19.

“Greetings, N3,” said a voice that sounded oddly familiar. “H19 here with a whole new batch of feelthy peectures. But perhaps you’re not in the mood for them right now, my friend.”

“Hakim!” Nick yelled. “You cross-eyed old son of a bitch!” And his face split into the kind of grin he had not worn in many hours. “What are you doing here — or there — or wherever you are? And what’s with the H19 routine?”

“I am now a Secret Agent,” Hakim said sepulchrally. “Mr. Hawk has given me a temporary assignment. I am especially sent for to unbotch your mistakes.” Then his voice changed; it was low and serious. “We will talk more later, Nicholas. But I have one bit of news that I think might interest you. It is this: I remembered who it was that I saw watching the surgeon von Kluge at that Cairo party. He left the country on the following day, destination unknown — many visas on his passport, including Canada. Not the U.S., but Canada is close enough. I described him to your Mr. Hawk, who was particularly interested in his artificial hands.”

“Artificial hands!” Nick sat bolt upright in the driver’s seat and Julia swung away from Hammond to stare at him.

“Yes, artificial hands. Two of them, and quite good ones. Apparently, he is much changed otherwise, but according to the description I was able to give, Hawk thinks he knows the man. His name was given to me as Martin Brown, his occupation, traveling salesman for some highly specialized equipment company which sent him often around the world. But it seems quite likely that his occupation is something entirely different, and that his name is not Martin Brown — but Judas.”

CHAPTER NINE

The Tenth Man

The finely shaped, so nearly natural fingers beat a metallic drum tattoo on the polished table top. Voices filled the room; raised voices of men engaged in heated business discussion. The tape, this time, had been especially chosen to drown out the live sounds, for now it was no longer possible to carry on the business of the day through scribbled notes and occasional brief whispers. There was too much to talk about.

“You must be sure of this, A.J., you must be sure!” the chairman cried, and his voice carried around the table like the singing whine of an angry mosquito. “We cannot permit ourselves to be deluded by rumours that may have been deliberately planted.”

“I am sure as I can be,” the can called A.J. murmured. “I heard the story first in Buffalo, and then again in the small township near West Valley. I then, as scheduled, made contact with L.M. He confirmed that, from his vantage point, he saw the craft go down and watched the search parties. Feng most certainly is dead. As for B.P. — no, I cannot be positive of that. But he did not contact me, as he was supposed to do. Perhaps, M.B., you have heard from him?”

“Don’t be a fool!” the mosquito sound whined furiously. “Would I be asking you these things if I knew the answers myself? Of course I would not, idiot! No, I have not heard from B.P. Nor have I heard anything intelligent from J.D. in New York. He has seen nothing, knows nothing, only that Carter and the Russian woman did not go back to their hotel. But I have heard from Cairo. Yes-s-s, I have heard from Cairo! And the Egyptian, Sadek, has slipped through the fingers of our people over there. The devil only knows what he has found out and what he is doing with his information.”

A.J. shrugged. “But what could he possibly have discovered? He will not know where to find us and he will not know us when he sees us. We were careful. Certainly he did not see us either before or after our — ah — operations. And von Kluge gave us back all the information and pictures from his files. He —”

“Ah, he gave us back the pictures, yes!” The man at the head of the table produced a smile that turned his face into a death’s head. “And I would have had him killed much sooner if it had not appeared that we might have further use for him — in which case I would have made very certain that he did not keep hidden copies. But, as it was, one had to work swiftly and without one’s customary care. Bah! those paid Egyptians turned out to be worse than useless. A careless killing and a careless search. Oh, yes, it is quite likely that the pig, von Kluge — my honored countryman, God rot him! — kept copies of the pictures for himself. And Sedek is not the fool he looks. If there were pictures, Sadek found them.”

“But pictures?” H.M. spoke for the first time. “That is all he could have found, and we have little to fear from them. These are big countries, and how is he to find us —?”

The metallic hand slapped down heavily on the table top.

“I tell you he is not a fool!” the thin voice snarled. “He will find good use for them. You can count on that. And it is not only pictures. He saw me! Me! He may not remember; he may not make anything of it. But he may. Certainly he will make something of those incredibly inept attempts to kill him. Hell’s teeth, I should have done the thing myself! But enough of that. He lives; he is a danger. Presumably the Russian woman also lives. Another danger. Therefore we must move quickly.” His burning slits of eyes sliced around the table like hot knives, biting into each man in turn. There were only four board members present, in addition to the chairman; three were attending to their business in the United States, and the other two…

“We must presume,” the high-pitched voice keened on, “that both Chang and Feng are dead. That means our entire link with the plant has been wiped out overnight. It is most unfortunate that we are unable to make further substitutions in the plant, but I suppose we must consider ourselves lucky to have done what we did. When L-Day comes we will take the plant without difficulty. In the meantime, we have all the supplies we need for the dress rehearsal.” The parchment face split.again into the death’s-head grin and the heavy shoulders bunched. “You four have your instructions in front of you. Read and burn as usual. I shall contact the rest myself. From now on we will step up all activities, especially those in connection with the material from the plant. Our three men in the field will handle its distribution. You, A.J., will add to their efforts, and you will also take the LSD. You will see that I have arranged its use to coincide with a power failure. You, C.F., will handle the pollutants. O.D., the same, but you will concentrate on water supplies. H.M., you will remain here for two days. You have the remote power-tripper in place? Good. You will activate it according to instructions, and then come back to the hotel to man the transmitter and receive calls. I myself will travel and make sure that all our plans work out. We will no longer meet here. It may be dangerous. Another of your duties, H.M., will be to report any investigative activities here in Canada for the next couple of days, at which time you will receive further orders. Remember — we are working now toward the final rehearsal. There can be only one. It must be a success, it must be devastating! And after that… ah, after that!” Again the hideous smile, like Death gloating in a charnel house. “After that, the final darkness. L-Day, and the end. All of North America will be ours.”

He gave a rich, satisfied sigh and leaned back, thinking of the glory that lay ahead for him and for the Chinese masters who were paying him so richly. And well they should, he thought; well they should.

And then he leaned forward abruptly and his slightly stiff fingers dipped into his briefcase.

“I, too, have pictures,” he fluted. “Study them. Memorize the faces. These arc the people we must look for. These are the people we must avoid or kill. Preferably kill. Five faces. Five. Study them!”

* * *

Nine minus two leaves seven, plus one makes eight. And the eighth was Judas. There was no doubt in his mind.

Nick leaned back in the U.S. Air Force jet and closed his eyes. Thank God for Hakim, he thought wearily, Too bad the reunion had been so brief and joyless, but when this whole snarled-up mess was sorted out they would have one helluva bash to make up for it — Nick and Hakim and Valentina and Julia, and maybe even Hawk.

There were pictures in his mind and in his pocket. Ten of them. Nine were copies of the photographs Hakim had discovered in von Kluge’s home, and among these were the faces of the phony Parry and Hughes. The tenth was a sketch, done from memory by Hakim, and Nick’s mental image of it was colored by his own, sharp recollections of the man. Valentina had confirmed the basic story; her nine were the same as Hakim’s. Nine minus two leaves seven… plus one makes eight… and the eighth living man was the ubiquitous, murdering Judas, the man who had offered his services so many times before to the highest bidder — so long as that bidder shared Judas’s scaring hatred for the Western world.

Nick cat-napped. New York and West Valley lay far behind him; West Valley swarming with extra guards and AXEmen and J. Egbert’s hard-faced boys; New York once again blessed by the presence of Valentina. But this time she had consented to disguise herself, and Hakim, too, was wearing a strange face.

Julia, beside Nick, stretched in her sleep, and a lock of new-blond hair fell over her new-blue eyes. She looked as Scandinavian as Nick himself; AXE’s Editing Department had made them look as much as possible like Viking brother and sister.

Nick stirred and peered at her. “ ‘S practically incestuous,” he murmured.

Julia stretched again. “No incest right now, brother baby,” she crooned sleepily. “Your little Inger needs her rest.”

“You’ve had it, love,” said Nick, glancing at his watch. “We’ll be coming into Montreal in just about ten minutes. Nap time is over.”

Which it was. Not only for then, but for many hours to come.

They checked into adjoining single rooms at the modest Hotel Edward and left almost at once on a sightseeing tour. But they were armed with more than cameras, and the sights they saw were police stations, municipal offices, travel bureaus, airline offices, hotels, restaurants, and — faces. Most of all they looked for faces. After a while they separated, agreeing to meet for drinks at the Princess Bar of the Hotel Monte Royale.

* * *

The panic in the States began to build.

First, there had been the weeks of intermittent blackouts, the smog, the filthy water, the lakes that were blood-red beneath the morning sun. Then, suddenly, the talk, the wild rumors about what had happened at West Valley.

At the same time, a new sighting of flashing flying saucers in a midwestern state.

Another lake, blood-red.

Smog, in Darien, Connecticut. In Darien!

Then a nurse in a Denver hospital found a strange container far back in a linen closet. She called the duty intern for her floor. He reported it to his chief. His chief called the police.

What the police said about it was in the afternoon papers.

It was not long before mysterious containers were being reported in junkyards, restaurant kitchens, rooming houses, railroad stations and checkrooms througout the nation. Most of diem were harmless. But some of them were not.

They were hundreds, even thousands, of miles apart, the harmless boxes and the dangerous ones. But the news spread quickly. And the very fact that the boxes were so widely scattered helped to build the fear into a near hysteria. It meant — so people said — that the enemy was countless in their midst. Or how else could they spread their treachery so far and wide? By this time they were very sure that there was an enemy, and those who did not believe in visitors from outer space began — inevitably — to connect all the disasters, large and small, with one source. The Reds.

And they were right. But they had no way of knowing, because of their own innocence, that what was happening to them was caused by nothing more than a small band of super-skilled saboteurs armed with chemicals, battery-operated motion-picture projectors, dye, simple electronic devices, and the lethal loot from the West Valley plant. Nor did it occur to them that the enemy was widespread only because it made swift, effective use of the airlines readily available to all.

* * *

Nick arrived at the Hotel Monte Royale several minutes early. It was only natural to use the time making the same inquiries that he had made elsewhere throughout the day, but he made them automatically and with very little hope. His biggest lead had been the airline that had issued Parry’s ticket, and that had proved to be a dud. So had all his other efforts.

And so, when the hotel manager and the house detective shook their heads regretfully, he was not at all surprised. They looked at all the pictures, including Hakim’s sketch of Martin Brown, and there was not one among them that they recognized.

“Bland-looking men,” the hotel dick commented. “Only the fellow with the beard and this skull-faced chap look like anything at all. But you stick around and I’ll check with reception and the bell captain.”

Nick stuck around and made conversation with the manager.

“I doubt if they were guests here,” Nick said, just for the sake of saying something. “In fact, for all I know, only one of them — the bearded man — has ever been in Montreal. I should think they must have met sometimes, somewhere, but it doesn’t have to have been here. And yet we do know that this man,” and he tapped the sketch of Judas, “has a visa to Canada. They may have made their headquarters in your country.”

The manager smiled wryly. “Not in my place, I hope. I’d hate to think I might have been harboring a gang of international thieves.” For that was what Nick had called them to avoid going too deeply into details, and it had brought cooperation if not concrete results.

And then the manager’s face froze and a curious look came into his eyes.

“Harboring them,” he repeated faintly. “Not as guests. Surely not as guests or I’d have been certain to have seen some of them, at least. Unless they were disguised? But… perhaps they needed no disguise. Because they were not expecting to be seen. Not after the first time. And you say you think they must have had a place to meet?”

“Yes, I do think so,” Nick said sharply. “What’re you getting at?”

The manager stood up and placed both hands against the front edge of his desk. “We have meeting rooms,” he said intensely. “Private conference rooms. Several companies use them for board meetings or special banquets. For the most part they are used by special appointment only. But one or two companies rent them on a long-term basis. They have private entrances, keys of their own. Even special locks. We.never see these people coming and going — they make these arrangements because of the highly secret nature of their business. I should not even tell you who they are —”

“But you will,” Nick said urgently. “You must. I’m not interested in prying into innocent businesses; I’m looking for one group of highly dangerous people. Thieves? They’re killers, man! I’ve got to know.”

The manager stared at him. “Yes,” he said. “I think you’d better know. One of the rooms is used by a branch of the Canadian Government, and they’ve been using it for years. I’ll vouch for them until hell freezes. The other — Canadian Ceramics, Ltd. Still in the process of building, I was told, so they have no permanent office of their own. I saw one of them, just once. Couldn’t tell you if it might have been one of these men in your pictures. He was elderly, white-haired, distinguished. Produced all manner of references and recommendations and paid for six months in advance. Insisted on absolute privacy because his company had a revolutionary new process in the planning stage and couldn’t take a chance on competitors’ getting wind of it. I’ve heard that kind of story many times before. So, of course, I —”

“Bought it,” Nick finished for him. “Naturally. And you’ve no idea when they hold their meetings?”

“None at all, none at all. They come and go unnoticed just like the Government people —”

“I want to see that room,” said Nick, starting for the door.

“Take you there myself,” the manager said, and led Nick through the lobby.

They walked together around the outside of the building and into a narrow paved road running the side of the hotel.

“Separate entrances, as you can see,” the manager pointed out.

Nick saw. They were not only separate but screened by low brick walls that led into private entranceways. With a reasonable amount of care ten men or two dozen men could easily have come and gone without being noticed.

“Thank you,” said Nick. “This one? Fine. I’ll go in alone.” And his nod was a dismissal.

“But how? I have no key.”

“I have.”

Nick waited until his guide was out of sight and then he went to work with his lockpicker’s special. The lock was a tricky one indeed.

And it was bolted from inside.

He worked quietly, methodically, glad of the bolt within because it must surely mean that someone was in there.

There was a series of low clicks. He waited for a moment, heard nothing from inside, and slid back the bolt.

Then he stopped into a narrow hall and bolted the door behind him. Again he stopped to listen.

Nothing.

There was a solid wooden door at the end of the hall and he glided silently toward it. It, too, was locked.

He picked it and slid inside.

It was a big boardroom with a large and shiny table. The table was bare and the seats around it were empty.

Across the room was another door. That one was half-open.

Nick reached for Wilhelmina and padded to the door.

The room beyond was small, little more than a closet, and a burly man with a bland face sat at a table tapping on a set of keys. And they were not typewriter keys.

Morse code was a language Nick knew well enough to think in. There was no need for him to pause and translate and miss any of the message. He flattened himself against the wall outside the tiny room and listened.

“H.M., H.M., H.M.,” he heard. “Come in T.S. Come in T.S. Report.”

“T.S., Little Rock. T.S., Little Rock. Stinkbomb in Negro section caused severe riot. Whole town in a state of tension. Completed box assignment according M.B. orders, in spite of difficult circumstances. Everyone suspicious of strangers carrying bags. Almost mobbed but got away. However, schedule thrown out. Delay prevents fulfillment of next project. Also, cops at town exits, airport stations, et cetera. Might not be wise attempt departure. Request advice. Over.”

“H.M. to T.S. Do you have secure accommodations where you are? Over.”

“Secure enough. Rundown hotel, Orval Street.”

“Stay there for further orders. Cannot advise otherwise until M.B. gives instructions. He may call on you directly but doubt if he has reached your area as yet. Can only suggest you wait in hotel and repeat contact in two hours. Over.”

Nick heard the smooth click of a switch and then the harsh scraping of a chair. The burly man yawned loudly and got to his feet. His big form loomed in the doorway next to Nick.

Nick leaned back to gain impetus and then lunged forward. Wilhelmina’s barrel cracked sharply, savagely, against the big man’s temple; and then the karate chop of Nick’s left hand sliced axelike deep into the neck.

H.M. dropped without a sound.

His face was a mirror image of one of Hakim’s pictures.

This time Nick was not taking any chances. He quickly tripped the man down to the skin, and then he took the strong adhesive tape he had almost lost hope of using and plastered lengths of it around the mouth, arms and ankles. And when he had done that he took a tiny syringe and a vial from an inner capsule and shot sleep into H.M.’s veins.

The little room contained the small transmitter-receiver and one suitcase, fully packed, Nick took a quick glance at both and then fingered a small switch behind his lapel. The two-way radio sewn into his jacket was no bigger than a cigarette case, but it was powerful and versatile.

“N3 to AXE H.Q.,” he murmured. “Top priority to Hawk… Sir? Found a lead in Hotel Mont Royale. I’ll bring him back to you. In the meantime, here’s another, and this means utmost speed: One of the seven is in Little Rock, in a rundown hotel on Orval Street, with orders to stay there. But he may not stay there long, so…”

He finished his message crisply. Before he signed off he could hear Hawk’s thin voice calling— “Sadek! Get me Sadek here at once. Good, Carter. Good. At last, for God’s sake! Over, out.”

The next call went to Julia. He could hear the bar sounds in the background.

“Buy you a drink, doll?” he said seductively into the tiny microphone.

“Get lost, buster,” she said harshly. “Buy yourself a drink. I’m leaving.”

He waited, studying the small machine in front of him. It was an unusual device, but he figured he could make it work.

H.M.’s receiver began to beep.

“L.M. Norfolk. L.M., Norfolk,” it said. “Come in, H.M., come in, H.M., come in, H.M.”

Nick flicked the transmitting switch. He could not see the hidden second switch at the back of the tiny machine tripping automatically as he began to transmit.

“H.M., H.M., H.M.,” he tapped. “Come in, L.M. Come, L.M. Report.”

A pause. Then: “H.M. Query. H.M. Query. Your touch is different. Is something wrong? Query. Request further identification.”

“All right, Nickska,” Julia’s voice murmured into his ear. “I had to leave the bar. Too many listeners. I’m in the ladies’ room. And where the hell are you? Speak, lover.”

“H.M., H.M., H.M.,” the little receiver tapped. “Identify yourself.”

“Wait, Julia,” Nick whispered. “Back with you in a second.”

His fingers played over the keys.

“H.M. to L.M.,” he tapped. “Yes, there is something wrong. Activity in hotel. Suspect search. B.P. must have talked. Must leave here soon. M.B. will have message for you within the next few hours. Wait — someone comes. Over, but wait!”

“Julia, baby,” he said into his mike, “go outside the hotel, walk around the west wing, take the second brick-walled path, and give the AXE signal. On your way, send message to Hawk that one of our chickens is roosting in Norfolk. Details later, but right now I’m on another line.”

He tapped again. “H.M. to L.M. Safe so far, but search gets closer. Your report, quickly. I will forward to M.B. if I get out of here. Hurry L.M. Hurry.”

“L.M. to H.M.,” came the answer, and this time the tapping from the other end was not quite as smooth as it had been. “Report as follows. Placed container in Naval housing unit. Started saucer scare. Left smog pollutants in eight different places. Request details trouble your end. Over.”

“No time,” Nick tapped urgently. “Must leave at once. Last orders from M.B. for you as follows. Stay where you arc. He will contact you in person because of crisis situation. Do you have secure accommodations?”

“Secure enough. Skyline Motel, Route 17. Over.”

“H.M. to L.M. Stay there and exercise caution. No need for great alarm, but must take care. Do not attempt to contact others. M.B. or self will do that as soon as possible. Over.”

“But my previous instructions —”

Nick blanked out the tapping with his own.

“Have been changed. You will obey new orders. Over and out.”

A pause. Tap-tap. “Accept. Over.”

Nick grinned to himself as he rose from the little machine. It was ready to receive more incoming calls, and so was he. For once he had been lucky, and if he went on being really lucky he could sit here and take messages until the whole lot of them called in, and Hawk would have them picked up one after the other.

It was unfortunate that he still did not know about the hidden switch at the back of the machine, the one that H.M. had turned off when he had risen to stretch and that had tripped automatically when Nick had started to transmit. He could not know that there was a timer attached, and that he had inadvertently left it in the “on’ position.

Nick spoke again into his tiny mike as he began to search the packed suitcase. “N3 to Hawk. N3 to Hawk. Further to Norfolk lead. Definitely Norfolk. Virginia. Prospect placed container presumably radioactive in Naval housing unit. May himself be found in Skyline Motel, Norfolk, Route 17.”

“Good. I already have a man — well, someone — on the way to Norfolk,” Hawk came back. “Which one of the prospects is it?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Nick said rather coldly, digging through the suitcase. “The initials he is using at the moment are L.M. But he didn’t send his photograph along with his message —”

“All right, all right, enough of that. But would you know if it was Judas?”

Nick shook his head at the unseeing microphone. “It wasn’t Judas, definitely wasn’t Judas. Neither was the one at Little Rock. They’re both awaiting orders from M.B. himself. Martin Brown, the boss. Or is it Brune, or something else? By the way, I am at the moment sorting through a suitcase apparently intended to be removed from here by the H.M. fellow. I suspect it’s only one of several, the others in use elsewhere. It should give the sceptics something to think about — more goodies in it than in a Fuller Brush man’s bag.”

“Hold it,” said Hawk, and spoke to someone at his side. “Prospect L.M. Norfolk. Alert our courier, send reinforcements immediately. Said to be at Skyline Motel, Route 17. On the double! All right, Carter.”

Nick went on with his inspection. “Pollutants you want? Take your choice. Smog you need? We got plenty! Stink-pills you got enough? Take home a six-pack.” He described the contents to Hawk as he rapidly sorted through them.

One small motion-picture projector with two unusually wide apertures, two lenses, and two accompanying rolls of film. “3D flying saucers, I’ll bet,” said Nick.

A large, flat package of charcoal-colored tablets that were nauseating to the nostrils. A canister of gelatine cap-rules filled with some kind of liquid. A pair of wire cutters. A little electronic device with a tiny plunger and a timer — something like a supra-modern version of a dynamite detonator, except that it seemed to be designed to detonate or jam electrical circuits.

“All right, the rest will keep,” said Hawk. “I get the point. I’ll send a man up to take over the transmitter: I don’t want you spending hours of your time sitting on your butt and chatting. You have other things to do. I’ll be in touch.”

There was a small click in Nick’s ear and Hawk was gone. Abrupt old devil, Nick thought, and then rose to his feet because of the hammering on the outer door. “Lizzie Borden took-an-awe,” the rhythm told him, and he knew his visitor was Julia.

He glanced down at the familiar features of H.M. The man was out cold and would be until AXE’s medics wakened him with the antidote. He might yet do some talking. And the transmitter was still in place to betray the men who used it.

Things were not going badly at all.

He took two steps away from the tiny room.

The blast was so sudden that it enveloped him before he heard it.

With a sizzling, savage, deafening roar and an agonized tearing of metal, the small room blew up behind him and spewed its flying debris into the larger room. Chunks of steel and plaster and wood sprayed outward as if shot from a cannon; lumps and slivers of searing missiles slammed against the back of his head. Nick dropped like an ox in a slaughter-house.

The transmitter had delivered its last message.

CHAPTER TEN

Two Versus Two

The man with the artificial hands sat with his hat pulled down low over his eyes and waited until the last minute before boarding his second flight of the day. But he was alert, and he was watching.

At the last call for his flight he rose unhurriedly and walked down the ramp, smiling thinly to himself. It was no trouble at all to travel to and through the United States, he was thinking, if only one had identifications and passports for all possible occasions. And those he had — the best that money could buy. So had his men.

He boarded the plane and obediently fastened his seat belt.

On the whole he was pleased. It was a great pity about B.P. and the plant, but they had served their major purpose. Now it was simply a matter of working with redoubled caution, and he was used to that. Even the question of new headquarters was already solved; it had been solved in advance because of the need for a place to keep the pilfered West Valley material.

Ah, yes. Things were not going badly at all. The newspaper stories, the radio reports; all were gratifying. Only a day or two more, and it would be time for the final, softening blow before L-Day.

Thousands of miles away, another man was voicing similar thoughts. He wore a drab Army uniform and so did the men with him; but they represented the top military brains of their country.

“We are entering the semifinal phase,” General Kuo Hsi Tang said with quiet pride. “Our own forces are at their peak of readiness, and conditions on the other side are very nearly ripe. Judas has done well. The imperialist dogs are already yellow-livered with fear. He has only to choose the one right moment, our Judas, then he will make his move. It will be the final softening, the chaos. Then we move.”

“One begins to think our move will not even be necessary,” Li Tu Men grunted scornfully. “Perhaps fear alone will be enough to break the paper tiger. Then we can — ah — negotiate on our own terms.”

“Perhaps,” said Kuo Hsi Tang. “But we will see, we will see. True, fear and demoralization are our greatest allies. But when the total sum of all the fears is combined with widespread, inexplicable darkness… ah, what greater opportunity shall we ever have to use The Weapon! But, as I say, we will have to wait and see — wait only a very little while — to see how the war games, the dress rehearsal, turn out, Then we act accordingly. But it all depends on Judas.”

* * *

There was a babble of voices in his ears and his head felt like an overripe melon that had burst. Something sticky clung to his back and oozed down over his face. It tasted like blood and it smelled like blood.

So I guess it’s blood, Nick thought dazedly, and tried to open his eyes. But not a muscle in his face or body moved.

There was another smell besides the blood, a confusing mixture of plaster dust and molten metal and burned wood.

People were talking very loudly and excitedly and he wished that they would go away. Sound and pain pounded through his body. Blood, chaos and agony; those things he was aware of. But nothing more.

And then there was another odor in his nostrils, a fragrant perfume that was like a clean and cool, yet somehow seductive, breeze. Light fingers touched his face; a damp and icy cloth stroked gently at the blood.

Julia’s voice was murmuring at him.

Julia’s… He still could not make out separate words because of the babbling and the roaring in his ears, but his senses were coming slowly back to him — enough, now, for him to think disparagingly that all those people were raving like a bunch of idiots. Yet, still he did not even wonder where he was and his eyes stared into swirling, red-tinged darkness.

Then Julia’s voice was suddenly sharp and clear. It rose above the babble and cut it off as if her voice had been a switch.

“I want the hotel doctor and a taxicab,” she said incisively. “If you must call the police, go do it and stop gabbing. But you’d do a whole lot better to get a C.B.I, man in here quickly and let me explain it all to him. Otherwise, I shall call Washington directly, myself. Now all of you get out of here and bring me back that doctor and a cab. I mean it!

And whether you like it or not, I am in a position to give you orders, so kindly do as you’re told.”

Pretty high-handed of her, Nick thought hazily. She’s lying, too, the honey-bitch. But doing it well.

The room suddenly was silent but for the sound of Julia’s low murmuring. At first, he thought she was talking to him, but then he heard her say — “Baron to AXE H.Q. Urgent to Hawk, Baron to AXE H.Q. Urgent to Hawk”

And then his head swirled again and he sank deep into the reddish darkness.

He surfaced again, moments later, and memory flashed back like a darting pain. His eyes opened and saw Julia bending over him, and he struggled to sit up.

“Down, tiger,” she said warningly. “You’re not ready for your Yoga exercises yet.”

His eyes darted searchingly about the room. It was chaos. But the worst of it was the bloody-sheeted figure lying only feet away from him.

“Julia,” he croaked painfully, “Is that…?”

Julia nodded. “Your captive, yes. If you were saving him for conversation, you’re out of luck again. Something very sharp and heavy landed on him, and — goodbye, number three. Now shut up for a while. The hotel quack is on his way to patch you up and then we’re heading back to New York. Papa Hawk is —”

“Wait,” he said urgently. They have a cache somewhere. The radioactive material. They must keep it some place to call upon as needed. It could be here, somewhere in the hotel. We’ll have to make a Geiger-counter search — we’ll have to turn this whole town upside down —”

“Not you,” she said firmly. “You’re in no shape to turn anything upside down. I’ll put through word to Hawk and someone else can do it. But not you.”

Pain pierced his head and then there was another moment of blackness. Dimly, he heard a door open and heard footsteps coming down the hall. They brought voices with them, and the slight odor of antiseptics.

“What about the others?” he asked faintly. “Little Rock and Norfolk? Any word?”

“Too soon for Little Rock,” Julia murmured, as the doctor and the house detective came into the room. “But unless our bird has flown from Norfolk, we should be making contact just about right now.”

Mrs Harry Stephenson had had many strange experiences in her nine years as proprietress of the Skyline Motel, Norfolk, but this one looked to beat them all. She had never in her life seen such an odd-looking pair of detectives. Well, the one was pretty standard stuff, except that he seemed much trimmer and tougher than the slob-bellies who usually came on skip tracing calls, but the other —!

She tore her eyes away from them and looked again at the row of pictures spread out on her reception desk.

“Yes, I’m positive,” she chirruped in her birdlike voice. “It’s this one right here. Came in last night in a Hertz, went out this morning, came in late this afternoon, hasn’t been out since. Number Seven, to your right. You can see the car’s still there.”

“Back door or windows?” the huge man rumbled in his deep-toned, oddly accented voice.

She shook her head. “No door. Small bathroom window. There’s no way out — or in — except the front. And the big glass window in the front there doesn’t open because of the air conditioning. Here’s the key. You can pull your car in front of number six, if you like. There’s no one there.”

“Kind of you, madam,” the big man boomed. “And rest assured that if there is any damage, you will be amply compensated.”

“Well, I hope you won’t—” she began, but the big man and the lean, tough one were already on their way out of her office.

She watched them get into the waiting car and speak briefly to the driver and another man. How odd the two of them look together, she thought. Just like Nero Wolfe and Archie….

The car drew up outside Number Six. The big man and the lean one got out; the other two waited.

“You tap on the window,” the big man said softly to Charley Hammond. “I’ll use the key.”

Charley glided to the window and made a rhythmic tapping sound that might have been a cautious signal. There was a slight movement from within, and Charley went on tapping.

The lock turned with a tiny click and the big man pushed. Nothing happened. Pushed again. The door refused to budge.

“Zut!” said the big man irritably beneath his breath; stepped back two paces, plunged forward like an angry bull with one vast, immensely powerful shoulder aimed at the door, and rammed three hundred pounds of muscled weight against the flimsy wood.

It splintered and caved inward with an outraged squeal as piled-up furniture flew backwards with the impact.

The huge man bounced over the scattered pile of chairs and bed and TV set with surprising agility and zoomed straight at the man who stood near the window, mouth wide open and gaping and gun protruding from his hand.

His single shot went hopelessly wide as the enormous figure landed on him with one massive hand ramming into his face and the other twisting the gun arm with one neat, almost casual flick that broke it. Then the big hands reached down and clamped viselike around the ankles to haul the fallen figure into the air, swing it around like a rag doll, and slam it hard against the wall.

The big man dusted off his hands and peered down at his handiwork.

“Do you think he’ll live through that?” asked Charley Hammond from the doorway, and there was a look of awe on his face that he usually reserved for Carter’s exploits.

“Oh, yes, he breathes. Wrap him up, friend Charley. But we will not have him delivered, no? We will take him with us and eat him on the way. Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho!”

And Valentina Sichikova slapped her enormous, trousered thigh and laughed delightedly.

* * *

There was a forward compartment on the U.S. Air Force jet that was usually reserved for the brass hats. For this one trip it had been hastily converted into a sick bay. It was cool, quiet, and very, very private, and the nurse was in bed with the patient.

Nick was swathed in bandages and not much else. And Julia’s tawny, silky form was covered only by Nick.

“You do make quick recoveries, don’t you?” she murmured. “You don’t think you might strain yourself?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Nick said softly, and nibbled her ear. “It’s therapy. I need it. I need you. Do you know that I love you?”

“Yes,” she said simply, and drew his head down to hers. Their mouths joined in a melting kiss.

He did love her, in his fashion, as she loved him in hers. It wasn’t a boy-meets-girl-and-marries kind of love; it had nothing to do with moonlight, music and roses. And yet, in its own way it was deep and strong. It was yearning, sensual, sometimes desperate because of the intrusive thought that there might be no tomorrow; it was a broken series of abrupt meetings, a sudden joining and parting of flesh, an occasional interlude of deceptive peace. A need; an understanding.

“It’s such a short flight to New York,” Julia sighed, stroking the battered body that lay over her like a blanket… a highly charged electric blanket.

“Yes, that’s why I told the pilot to take us to San Juan,” Nick murmured.

And then her tawny tigress’ body rippled sensuously beneath him, and there was no more of the banter that so often served to cover up the things they really wanted to say.

They had no more than half an hour left to let their bodies do the talking; and their bodies talked with eloquence.

The silent speech began with gentle touches, little explorations that made flesh tingle and the muscles tense expectantly. Julia’s fingers traced the contours of his lithely muscled body, remembering where they had been before and what their touch could do; and his hands, in turn caressed her swelling breasts and thighs until her body taunted deliciously, demandingly. She trembled slightly as he sought out the secret places — no secret, any more, to him, but still with their own mystery — and little arrows of passion darted through her carrying separate little shafts of warmth that gradually merged until they engulfed her in a mellow glow. Nick sighed voluptuously and stroked the glow into a building flame.

Her legs entwined his and they rolled together. Lips met and burned; thighs undulated.

The pleasant singing of their senses blended into the quiet droning of the powerful engines, and the slight pulsation of the plane was lost in the more urgent pulsation of their bodies.

He marveled at her as he made love with all his heart and all his subtlety, glorying in the feel of her firm flesh against his and the provocative movements that soon would galvanize his body. She was always the same, yet never the same; that was the contradiction of her. Sophisticated Julia, with the teasing, expert touch…. Catlike Julia, languorous, wanting to be stroked… Tigerish Julia, hot with desire, falling on him and attacking like a wild thing… then languorous again, lying back provocatively, waiting for him to do things to her that only he could do to bring her to the highest peak of passion.

They came together as if that was all the two of them had ever wanted, let the stimulating movement build until it seemed that it could build no more, then parted, gasping, to savor the ecstasy and postpone the inevitable end until the last possible second.

“Julia baby, Julia baby,” Nick whispered, his face buried in her hair and all the pain forgotten. “Sweet baby…

“Mine,” she whispered back. “Love me, love me, love me!”

She accepted him again and he plunged deep into warmth and softness. She melted gently, slowly, and then burst into a new flame that rippled through her body and jerked her sinuous limbs into an erotic, thrilling rhythm. A little moan escaped her lips and her arms tightened about him in a clasp that was fierceness and tenderness together, as if she held the whole world in her arms and would be altogether lost if she let go.

He could feel the yearning in her, not just the animal urge, but the honest depth of feeling and the need to be a part of someone else who knew her world. For, in a way, they were both outcasts from the normal scheme of things, and they both knew it. And so, two people who lived for the moment and could only hope that there would be other moments made the kind of love that they both needed.

Her fingers tightened on his back and her supple, sinuous body writhed urgently.

Now she was all woman — not cat, not tiger — Woman. Earthy woman, damp hair curling about her ears, mouth crushing his, breasts peaked and thrusting, thighs clasping hungrily, body ripe and ready.

He rolled her over, still entwined with him, in a fluid, twisting motion that brought a sharp little cry of added pleasure from her, and drew her so close, so very close, that she could feel everything he had to give. She cried out again, almost piteously, and her muscles tightened against the hard thrust of him so that he could not have let go even if he had wanted to.

And, of course, he did not want to.

The weight of her on top of him, light and lithe as she was, tipped the delicate balance between control and absolute delirium, and with a surge of the purest happiness he gave in to the final urge.

They thrust together, rocked, thrust, dissolved into one person in a state of ultimate ecstasy. Wild exhilaration swept through them like a rushing storm wind and carried them along in their intimacy for long moments of exquisite passion… and gradually the storm wind sighed down into a gentle breeze. They drifted on it, lazily and lovingly, until it glided to a stop.

Their words were soft and broken and the fluttering kisses were small gifts of thanks.

The sound of the great engines, outside of their tiny world, altered subtly. The plane banked slowly.

“You lied to me,” Julia murmured, eyes half-closed and heart still beating with excitement. “It’s not San Juan, but New York after all.”

“Oh, I am a treacherous fellow.” Nick smiled down at her and Hilled her once more on the Hps. “But I have my miserable living to earn. And the big birdman awaits.”

He dressed quickly, watching Julia admiringly from the corner of his eye as she slipped into her own clothes. For a woman she was the quickest dresser he had ever seen in action.

“But what the hell!” he said suddenly. “Why should I be dragged back to New York? What’s the action there?”

“None, so far as I know.” Julia stared at him speculatively. “It’s just that Papa Hawk wants to see you and —”

Nick slammed his fist suddenly into his open palm. “Goddamn! He sent the Geiger-counter men up to Montreal, did he?”

“Sure he did,” said Julia. “Pappy always follows your advice. There’s a new radioman on duty there by this time, too, with a new transmitter — just in case.”

The plane was circling now, maintaining a steady holding pattern.

“But Canada!” said Nick. “I’m a blind fool. Just because they had their meeting place up there doesn’t mean that’s where they keep the stuff stolen from the plant. Why not in the States, where they could get at it so much easier? My God, it’s the U.S. we should be searching!”

“Well, we are,” Julia said reasonably. “I’ll bet you there isn’t a Geiger counter in the States that isn’t being used right now to track down little boxes —”

“Little boxes!” Nick snorted. “What about the source of supply? Unless, God help us, it’s all been scattered by now. Say — what about the AXE “copter?”

“AXE ‘copter?” Julia raised her eyebrows at him. “Didn’t know AXE had one. What’s that got to do with it?”

“Plenty,” said Nick shortly. “It’s equipped with the same sort of devices scientists use to measure radioactive fallout after nuclear explosions and a whole lab full of detection gadgets.”

“Well, that’s just dandy,” Julia said, “but it would take weeks to scour the whole country looking for a cache that may not even exist any more.”

“Why the whole country?” asked Nick. “It must be in a place that has some meaning; it must be in some sort of focal point.”

“Sure. Montreal,” said Julia.

“No, I don’t think so any more. Handy enough for meetings, but what about between meetings? Not practical. Damn this plane! Why doesn’t it land?”

It was still maintaining the steady holding pattern. Nick glanced automatically at his watch. “Wait here,” he said abruptly. “Got to use the pilot’s radio to get through to Hawk.”

He was talking to Hawk moments later in the AXE code that sounded like English and was English but made no sense except to those who knew the key.

“You got ten minutes at least,” the pilot had assured him, and Nick used only a couple of them. Hawk had news for him.

“Good and bad. Four down so far; prospect caught in Norfolk. Concussed, unfortunately, but will recover. Also, all other personnel at West Valley have been completely cleared. Both Hughes and Parry had vacations some three-four months ago, and that is no doubt when the substitutions were made. Clever planners, these bastards. Both fellows indisputably of Chinese origin. Bad news: radiation sickness being felt in several parts of the U.S., containers not yet discovered. We are searching. Part of Pennsylvania an New Jersey are in a state of blackout at this moment. Evidence of pollution in a Wyoming dam. No further leads. Nothing yet from Little Rock. And you? I thought your head had been blown off. Report.”

Nick reported briefly and then made his request.

There was silence for a moment. “Very well,” said Hawk, at last. “I’ll have it there. But you’ll have to go alone”

* * *

Hundreds, thousands, millions of radios and telegraphic devices were operating throughout the United States at that moment.

One of them was very different from all but its nine brothers, special units designed to communicate only with the others.

Which was why the AXEman stationed in the shattered hotel boardroom received no incoming messages.

“M.B. to H.M. M.B. to H.M. M.B. to H.M. Come in, H.M Come in, H.M. Come in, H.M.!”

Judas waited. Tried again. Still no reply. The parchment-like skin of his domed forehead wrinkled.

“M.B. to L.M. M.B. to L.M. M.B. to L.M. Come in, L.M. come in L.M….”

No reply.

The skull-face beneath the thatch of transplanted human hair twisted hideously.

“M.B. to T.S. M.B. to T.S. Come in, T.S. Come in, T.S.”

“T.S. Little Rock, to M.B. Come in, M.B. Awaiting instructions. Why no answer, H.M., Montreal? Over.”

“Would like to know myself,” Judas tapped out savagely. “Leave present headquarters at once, using all possible care. Abandon equipment in concealed place, if possible. Will concentrate now on final phase. Go immediately to railroad station men’s room and await me there. Will meet you soonest. Over.”

* * *

The unease in Little Rock was almost palpable.

The tall, good-looking man with the oddly darting walk could feel it as he walked down Orval Street. It seemed to him that people were watching him as he passed the seedy shops and paused in front of doorways; it also seemed to him that there were an inordinate number of rundown hotels and boarding houses on this city-back-yard street.

It was a cool evening but Hakim Sadek was sweating beneath his flesh-toned plastic face mask. He had used all his charm and all his carefully faked papers to make his inquiries, but he had drawn a dozen blanks. No one had recognized the faces in the pictures he had shown them. Now, he could see that the residential section stretched only a couple of blocks more before deteriorating into an area of gas stations and used-car lots.

He stopped outside a bar, lit a cigarette, and thought longingly of cold Egyptian beer. The voices from the bar were loud and truculent, and he could hear the note of hysteria in them as an argument raged.

“You listen ta me! It’s the Commies right here in our own country, and don’t you believe nothin’ else. We shoulda fried the whole stinkin’ lot o’ them, all them party members an’ the whole lot —

“Yer crazy! They came from outside, boy! They got us infiltrated. You know how? Trawlers, that’s how. And sub-marines. And some of them refugees from Cuba, you betcha life. Scum, the lot o’ them. Gonna take us over, that’s what. Russians and their buddies.”

“It’s the bomb. It’s been like this since the bomb. Little boxes — who believes in them? Weather changes — heat waves here, droughts there, floods where they don’t need no more water, stinks in the air — don’t tell me it ain’t got nothing to do with all that atomic experimental stuff. You know damn well —”

“Oh, yeah, atomic bomb. Well let me tell you there’s a lot of things happening you can’t explain by bombs or Russians or any of that kind of crap. You ain’t seen them flying saucers? Well, I have. This whole thing happening here, the blackouts and the red water and those people dying, it’s from space, fella, it’s from space. Sure, we’re infiltrated. I tell you, I saw that burned-out place where that thing had landed, and that was nothing from this earth, boy —”

“Oh, you and your Martians, Billy Joe! It’s people! People right here in our midst. Maybe you. Maybe Dewey. Maybe Chuck. Maybe —” “Maybe, you, you —!”

Hakim threw away his half-finished cigarette. This will burst soon, he thought. It cannot go on. If this is what They were trying to do, They were succeeding admirably. He started to walk on in his darting stride. It was then that he saw the man coming down the steps of the shabby building and passing under the street light so that the glow fell on his face. The man turned toward Hakim. His walk was unhurried but somehow tense, and although he was still too far off for positive identification, there was a chunkiness about his body and slight curvature of the legs that augmented Hakim’s first startling impression of his face.

Hakim reeled slightly and fished out another cigarette.

The man came closer and drew level with him.

“Hey, buddy, got a match?” asked Hakim.

The man looked sideways at him and shook his head impatiently.

The bar’s light spilled across his face — and Hakim knew him.

“Pity,” he said pleasantly.

His lanky right leg shot out in unison with his arm and he gave one sharp tug. The man landed heavily and rolled over like a wounded animal. Hakim was upon him instantly, his lean fingers groping expertly for the tender points of the man’s neck.

Then something stabbed Hakim sharply in the side. Not a knife, nothing so crude as that. A needle point.

He felt his senses swimming even as his hands tightened about the neck. Again the pinprick sensation. He saw the other man’s arms darting and flailing, and he knew that he himself was going under. Swift-acting drug, his brain told him coldly; and he knew that there was only one way he could win this fight. He had wanted the man alive, but now the man would have to die.

His body felt like lead and the other was squirming beneath him. Finally, he managed one swift lurch to plant a savage knee-jab in the man’s groin. Then his strong fingers squeezed inexorably.

But the man kept squirming.

So, with a great effort, Hakim lifted the thick, heavy body to a sitting position and smashed the head down hard on the concrete sidewalk.

And still the chunky body squirmed.

Groggily, Hakim groped for the fountain pen in his top pocket. Its delicate point suddenly elongated three inches at his fumbling touch. He sank it deep into the neck he was still clutching with one feeble hand.

In the growing haziness he was dimly aware of the swinging bar doors bursting open and shouting men spilling out onto the sidewalk.

“Jesus, get the cops! Christ, Curly, look — he’s killed a guy!

With a pen, by God! Willya looka that”

Hands tugged at Hakim.

“Hey, look! It’s a mask, he’s wearing a mask. Gawd, see the face? It’s one of them! Jeeze, kill the dirty bastard!”

Hakim felt the plastic mask being ripped away from his face, the rain of kicks and blows that slammed into his body. Dimly, very dimly, he heard the sound of a police whistle as his clothes tore and he felt a trickle of blood make its way wetly down his face.

“Lemme at him, Billy Joe! For Chrissake, gimme a turn, will you?”

He felt one more agonizing pain in his ribs and heard a cry of savage delight. Then he heard no more.

Mr. Judas heard about the new riot even before he reached the railroad station.

T.S. was not in the men’s room. Judas was not surprised. Savagely angry, but not surprised.

He left the station and went to the washroom of a small cafe. There, between other people’s visits to the place, he succeeded in making contact with his remaining four. He gave them new instructions.

An hour later he boarded another plane. In spite of his losses he was grimly satisfied. A few dead men were nothing to him. But the chaos he had heard about and seen made him chuckle to himself. And nothing, now — nothing — could prevent the fulfillment of his master plan.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Meeting For Murder

Five down, if Hakim had been lucky. That left four plus one to go.

Ten little, nine little, eight little Red Chinamen…

Going down like ninepins, but too slowly. And no sign, yet, of the Kingpin, while the precious hours passed in tedious search.

Nick watched the indicators on the panel as he guided the AXE “copter through the night. His gaze was intent, because now at last he had something to look at. The whole craft seemed to be ticking and whirring like a bomb about to burst.

He tightened his circular flight pattern and watched the sizzling green light of the main detectorscope. It narrowed briefly and broadened again as he swung north toward the lake, and the indicator needle on the panel beneath it took a sideways dive and quivered convulsively.

About time.

It had already taken much longer than he had hoped; time enough for him to hear reports of a strange occurrence in Little Rock and for Hawk to jet Julia down to check into it; time enough to begin to wonder if he had not been mistaken after all.

But now he knew he had been right.

If there was a cache somewhere it had to be in the general vicinity of the West Valley plant for the late Mr. Parry’s convenience; it had to be accessible by road for the sake of the others; and it was probably not far, in road miles, from a fair-sized airport. Or so he had figured until he had begun to doubt and punch holes into his own argument.

The holes were plugging themselves up rapidly. The broad band of the dectorscope billowed outward in a spreading, jagged pattern that told him the cache lay down below. South of Buffalo, north of West Valley, close to the shores of Erie.

He circled again until he had the location pinpointed exactly. There was nothing to be seen below him in the darkness but a sweep of breach and a glint of pale moonlight on the water that cast the faintest of glows on a shapeless mass of trees and rocks, but his whole bank of supersensitive instruments assured him that there was something down there that did not belong.

“N3 to Hawk, N3 to Hawk”

Nick gave his report as he circled again, this time slightly to the south toward a landing area.

“If they’re down there they must have heard me,” he said, hovering low over a strip of grassland bordering a sweep of lake sand. “Suggest you put a watch on Buffalo airport and all nearby roads in case they’re sneaking off.”

“I haven’t any more men,” Hawk said tensely. “I have them checking out disturbances from here to hell and back — Hell Gate to Hell’s Kitchen. My God, Carter, I wish you knew just how much trouble we have on our hands. But we did make positive identification of the man in Little Rock, and we did find his suitcase abandoned in his hotel room. Same contents as the one you found.”

“And Hakim?”

There was a pause.

“Beaten brutally,” Hawk said grimly, “Panic victim. He’s alive, but… but let’s get on with the job. I’ll have radiation experts standing by to follow you in when you’re sure. But, you understand, I am positively unable to send you reinforcements.”

“Don’t want any,” said Nick, as the AXE craft came to a feather-soft landing on the grass. “But the roads and the airport —

“I’ll do my best,” Hawk interrupted.

Nick signed off and strapped the AXE-designed portable Geiger counter at his waist with its single earphone against his ear.

Wilhelmina, Hugo and Pierre were waiting in their usual places for the action to begin.

Now for the difficult part — finding the place on foot.

He padded along the beach and through the fringes of trees, following the fluctuating hum in his ear.

Time ticked by. The sensitive instrument sang quietly to him.

He skirted the lake shore and flitted, shadowlike, through groves of trees, cursing the waste of time and urging himself on as the humming grew louder in his ear.

The line of beach and intermittent trees gave way to a stretch of rocks and then to humps of root-tangled land jutting out into the water. He picked his way silently through the bushes, over more rocks, past a great boulder and through another small grove of trees.

He came out of the grove and rounded a pile of boulders. And suddenly the sound in his ear was almost deafening.

He was standing, now, on the outer rim of a small inlet, and his view of the inner curve was blocked by a clump of bushes. It took him a moment to pick his way around them, but when he did he could see the full sweep of the cove and the ancient jetty that jutted into it from the shore. By this time the sound in his ear was so loud that it was unbearable. He turned the instrument off, he did not need it any more.

They had been lucky to find this place. Judas, no doubt, had done the scouting, and he had the expert’s nose for searching out such hidden places. There could not be many such inlets along the coasts of Erie. Someone, long ago, had built a boathouse here in this wild cove, and abandoned it. Maybe because it was so wild; maybe because the rocks here were treacherous. Maybe he had gone broke. But he had gone, and left his shack and jetty for a Judas to make use of.

There was an old but sturdy cabin cruiser bobbing beside the sagging planks with only one dim blue light to give away its presence. Beyond it was the boathouse, sagging like the jetty and apparently unusable, but no doubt reinforced from within and quite capable of storing enough material to keep the Ten busy for many weeks. It must have been quite easy to build, say, a false flooring or wall, and give it a weathered appearance. No reason at all why anyone should ever have stumbled on their cache until it had served its purpose. Nor would the ordinary Geiger counter have picked up the message given off by its contents. However, AXE equipment was not ordinary.

Nick picked his way silently along the curve of the inlet toward the pier. The boathouse was behind it, and behind the boathouse was another grove of trees. Somewhere beyond it, Nick judged, there would be a back road leading to a main highway — one that branched off both to Buffalo and to the West Valley plant.

And the cabin cruiser itself made a useful vehicle, especially if those who used it knew a landing place on the Canadian side of the lake where they might slip off, undetected…

He reviewed his mental map as he glided through the darkness. Niagara Falls was only a stretch of lake and a strip of land to the north. Very, very handy to reach from here, if one had business to attend to in that part of Canada — or any part, for that matter and a certain amount of spy’s skill to go with it.

Judas’s skill was a master of record. And there was no doubt at all that his business interests reached across the border.

Nick passed parallel to the jetty and rounded the inner curve of the inlet toward it. The boathouse was a dark and silent hulk. Only the boat alongside the pier showed any sign of life, and that was no more than a rhythmic bobbing on the water and a pale gleam of blue light.

But the boat could wait. Right now he wanted to be sure about the boathouse.

He edged around it cautiously, staring into the grove of trees for any sign of a watcher and feeling with his hands for an entrance to the rickety building. He found it easily enough, but, of course, the doors that should have been as ramshackle as the building were not only firm but securely locked and barred. The rust on the locks seemed genuine, but he was sure that it was not.

The padlock clanked softly at his touch — and something rustled in the trees.

He drew back into the darkest of the shadows and listened to the night. He heard crickets, the flutter of birds’ wings, the sigh of a low breeze in the leaves, a frog, the splat of water as the cruiser gently swayed and rocked. Nothing alarming, nothing out of place. Yet, his muscles were taut with expectancy, and the hair on the back of his neck stood out like porcupine quills.

Someone was near. He was sure of it.

But nothing moved as he strained his eyes and cars into the darkness, and after a long, waiting moment he took the tiny compasslike device from his pocket and trained it first in the direction of the boat and then at the shambles of the boathouse. It gave no reaction to the boat. But as Nick swung it back toward the boathouse he could see the little illuminated needle jerking convulsively around the dial in his cupped hands, and then he was sure the boathouse was the supply depot and the boat was the meeting place.

So. He would attend their next meeting, whenever it might be.

Blue light from the boat spilled across the jetty and made a shining path of it. He would have to turn back around the curve of the inlet, strip, and slide into the water, or he might be seen by… by whatever it was that was making his skin crawl.

He inched his way forward, wishing for the thousandth time in his life that he had eyes in the back of his head, eyes with built-in night sights to turn the darkness into light. But he did not. His night senses were exceptionally acute, but he was only human.

His foot scrunched across a tiny, unseen twig when he was about five feet from the boathouse and heading stealthily for a cluster of tall boulders. He heard the other sound in that same instant and knew that he had given himself away. There was a rustle of cloth behind him and the softest of footfalls; he flung himself sideways and jerked Hugo loose from his sheath. But the two muscular arms were already locking themselves around his neck in a blinding stranglehold. They tightened around his windpipe, squeezing mercilessly. Nick kicked backwards violently as his own hands shot up to claw at the ones at his throat. His kick missed, as the man behind him sidestepped with an agile, twisting movement. The grip became a neck-breaking bear hug.

Hugo’s flicking blade bit deep into the pressing hands. They loosened infinitesimally to change position, but then the grip became a choking armlock. The man was tall and incredibly powerful. His clutch was iron and his determination must have been made of the same stuff, because Hugo was making no impression. The grip tightened further and then there was a sudden savage twist that had Nick almost off his feet. He thrust backward with the stiletto’s ice-pick blade and had the satisfaction of hearing a pained grunt. Then he rolled with his attacker’s own twisting movement and threw himself hard on the ground, dragging the other with him. Again there was a gasp of pain, but the grip still held him. Dizziness began to blur his mind. His throat and chest were burning in a blaze of agony. Even as his mind swirled he grudgingly admired the other man’s tenacity, because apparently Hugo’s bite was beginning to take effect at last, although the iron hold was still choking him inexorably.

He brought his elbow back with all his strength and slammed it hard and deep into the other man’s stomach, and when the loud grunt came and the feet flailed he twisted abruptly and wrenched himself free. A long, bony knee jabbed upward toward his groin and he dodged it with a rapid rollover. It struck his thigh but he brushed it aside with a swift kick of his own that brought a savage sound from the other man and a miraculously swift movement.

The man was on his feet — incredibly, on his feet — and his right hand was thrust inside his jacket.

Nick was up and pouncing. His left hand caught at the other’s reaching arm and twisted it, and Hugo sank into the chest. The tall man uttered an animal sound and kicked out in a whiplike motion that snaked his leg past Nick’s and made his own long body sway like a falling tree. The man swore furiously and chopped out with both hands.

Nick ducked low and kicked upward from his half-crouch even as he rose. His toe connected with the chin and the tall man rocked and grunted. He cursed. In Chinese.

“That was your last chance, friend,” Nick said conversationally, and nailed Hugo through the fellow’s neck.

The man gurgled and kicked out, his lanky body flailing like an injured octopus, and his hands and feet thrashed in motions of attack. Again Nick felt a wave of reluctant admiration. The fellow was refusing to die, prolonging the battle and his own agony.

Hugo drew back and darted forward one more time.

The tall man’s hands clawed wildly at Nick’s face, while his body, still almost upright, teetered crazily, fighting death itself. For a long moment the tall figure stood there, swaying and squirming. Then it dropped like a felled oak.

Nick crouched beside it, waiting, meticulously wiping Hugo’s blade on the other man’s sleeve and probing the darkness with his ears and eyes. The dying heart slowed and stopped. The silence was even deeper than before.

His listening ears caught nothing but normal night sounds.

He hoisted the body over his shoulders and carried it to the nearest clump of rocks. When he had dumped it on the other side he played the thin beam of his flash over the narrow, flat-planed face and powerful body.

No doubt of it. Six down, and three-plus-one to go.

The contents of the pockets told Nick that he was searching one John Daniels of New York. Known as J.D.? He did not know; he did not care. All he cared about was six down and three-plus-one to go.

He straightened up, still listening. The instinct, the trained instinct that had served him so many times before, told him that he was now alone.

Nick walked cautiously at first and then more boldly through the pale moonlight. At the boathouse he paused briefly to double-check his instinctive feeling that his only company was one dead man, and then he glided openly along the jetty to the boat. No shadowy figures leaped at him and no guns spat.

The boat had one small cabin, with a separate wheelhouse, a lot of deck space and a tiny galley. Once upon a time it must have served a fisherman well. But now it —

Now it was a meeting place, and he could hear a car somewhere in the distance.

He boarded the boat quickly and gave it a rapid onceover. Everything else about it was old and dilapidated, but the engine was new. The small hatch in the after section held rope and canvas. After a moment or so it also held Nick. He propped the overhead door open with one hand and pricked up his ears. The sound of the car faded out as he crouched there.

Long minutes passed.

He had just about decided that the car must belong to some local resident when he heard the rustle of leaves from the shore and then the footsteps on the creaking jetty.

Wilhelmina slid into his hand. He fitted the silencer on while he waited for his guests.

Low whispers carried to him through the night air. Chinese whispers. He strained his ears to listen, and fragments came to him.

“… should be here before us… car… hidden… but where can he be? He only… from New York.”

“His orders may… changed. Perhaps Judas….”

“Surely we… notified? After all the trouble we took to meet at Buffalo air —”

“Quiet! Might be… Yuan Tong, you stay on deck… Watch…”

“Nothing to…”

Now the whispers were clearly audible “Yes, but don’t forget our losses. We must take care.”

The boat rocked as one man… two men… three men boarded her.

Nick peered through the barely open door of the hatch.

The three men were looking around the boat.

“All seems well,” one murmured. “It must be that he was delayed in New York. Perhaps by misadventure? We should make contact with him.”

“Should we not search?” the second man whispered.

“For what?” snarled the third. “Can an army hide here? Would Judas have us meet him here if he were not sure that it is safe? No, we will contact Jing Du from within. Yuan Tong will do guard duty. Not so, A.J.?” Nick heard a slightly fruity chuckle, and the second man nodded and answered in an exaggerated southern American accent. “Yeah, sure, you bet, C.F.,” he twanged, and his face stretched in an ugly grin.

Two men, carrying suitcases, went into the small cabin and closed the door. Yuan Tong, alias A.J., sat down on a coil of rope and opened his large traveling bag to haul out a gun.

Nick knew the weapon. It was a particularly nasty Chinese device, a minor mortar with a repeating action that made it more than twice as murderous and swift as the average automatic.

Yuan Tong sat still for a moment, half-listening to the soft murmur of voices through the partly open cabin porthole and feeling his gun barrel with a loving touch. Then he rose restlessly and began to prowl about the deck.

He lifted a canvas and peered beneath it. He stopped at the low side rail and gazed out over the lake. He strolled into the wheelhouse. He looked in through the cabin port. He stared back at the boathouse and the grove of trees.

And then he strolled casually toward the deck hatch within which Nick lay hidden.

Nick watched him through the narrow opening made by his own clutching fingertips. His other hand tightened reflexively on Wilhelmina — and then slackened. Even the low pop of the silencer would be heard by the others who sat so close by, and then there would be the thud of the body and the clatter of the falling gun onto the deck. Too loud; too chancy.

He would have to take another kind of chance.

He waited. Maybe Yuan Tong would not look into the hatch.

The man approached slowly, almost languidly, his weapon dangling from his hand. And then suddenly all that Nick could see of him was a thick shape blocking out nearly all of the dimly glowing light, and the weight of the hatch cover lifted from his fingertips.

It took Nick one split second to put Wilhelmina silently down upon a coil of rope and tense his body for the spring. Then the hatch cover opened above him and he made his move. In a lightning grab he caught the dangling gun and thrust it down beside Wilhelmina even as the steely fingers of his left hand went for the other’s throat. Then both of his hands were acting together, clamping themselves swiftly and savagely at Yuan Tong’s neck and squeezing with an expert viciousness born of the desperate need to do the thing right and do it quickly. He heard a tiny strangled gasp and felt the hatch cover thud down heavily against his arched back, and he offered up a small and silent prayer that the noises were not as loud as they seemed to him.

Yuan Tong’s feet were scraping along the deck like files over rough sandpaper and his mouth was working in a frantic effort to produce some sound. Nick tightened his grip around the neck and pulled down with a sudden snapping jerk that brought the Red Chinaman’s belly down hard against the edge of the hatch and almost on top of him. There was another sound, a sharp expulsion of breath, and flailing arms dug into his body from above. But they were like bugs on a beach for all the harm they could do. Nick’s thumbs had found the arteries in the other’s neck and they were pressing in relentlessly. Harder, harder, harder! he commanded himself, and poured all his strength into that one act of squeezing. The man’s body arched suddenly and then relaxed. Nick changed his hold by fractions of inches and concentrated on the windpipe. Hot breath belched into his face… and sighed away to nothingness. Yuan Tong sagged on top of him and the hatch cover sagged down with him.

Nick crawled out from under and raised the cover silently. No outcry came to meet him. There was nothing to be heard but the gentle sounds of the lake and a low tap-tapping from within the cabin.

And lots of luck to you, Nick thought grimly. Still crouching where he was, he turned and gave one final, devastating chop against both sides of the Red Chinaman’s neck. Unnecessary, perhaps, but it did not pay to take too many chances.

He retrieved Wilhelmina, wriggled out of the hatch, and lowered the lid silently over the late Yuan Tong.

Seven little Red Chinamen, gone.

Nick padded to the single open porthole of the tiny cabin. The tapping had stopped and two low voices were engaged in an animated discussion in colloquial Chinese. But it told him nothing he did not already know — mainly that J.D. was not answering from New York.

He waited. Maybe they would go on to something more illuminating.

“But Judas’s message said we were to plan to finish this tomorrow,” one said, “How in the name of Satan will we do it when we are so few?”

The other grunted. “It was planned for few,” he murmured. “Judas will know what to do. After all, this is only a question of proving that it can be done. One final wave of terror, and the American fools will be reduced to gibbering, terrified idiots. Do you know what people were talking about on the plane, what they were saying? That the Martians have landed! That they are being taken over by creatures from outer space. Tee, hee, heel With such a mentality, do you not think they will all be jelly by the end of tomorrow night?”

“I myself may be jelly by the end of tomorrow night,” the first said moodily. “They know about us, don’t you understand? They are picking us off slowly, one by one. It is the Russian woman and that Egyptian Sadek. They have us marked for death.”

“Pah! You talk like a gibbering American yourself. How can they possibly…?”

But Nick’s ears had picked up something else.

There was a car approaching from somewhere beyond the glade of trees. As he listened, the sound of its motor grew louder. And then stopped.

It had to be Judas. It had to be.

Well, two was company. And four made two too many. He had been waiting for a long time to meet Judas again and he did not want the scenery cluttered up with extras.

He slithered silently around the tiny cabin. Seconds later the lockpicker’s special had done its work and the two men were locked in. He thought, but he could not be absolutely sure, that the trees in the grove were rustling with an extra sound.

The two voices were whining on. Not for long, Nick told them silently, and drew Pierre from his pocket. He gave the deadly little gas bomb one quick twist and dropped it lightly through the partly open porthole. It landed with a little click, and rolled.

“What was that?” The two men leaped to their feet. One went groping after Pierre and the other reached for the door. Nick closed the porthole quietly and waited. No doubt they would open it within moments, but that would not help them. He ducked down out of sight. No need to watch them die.

But they did it loudly, much too loudly. It took only slightly more than thirty seconds but in their dying throes they screamed in gurgling, high-pitched voices and hammered on the door. For a moment he thought the flimsy boards would shatter beneath their weight even though Pierre’s swift-acting poison was already gnawing their nervous systems, and he braced himself against the quivering door to hold it shut.

Was there, or was there not, a sound of footfalls coming through the trees? Hurry with your dying, damn you!

The screaming and the pounding stopped with a curious abruptness and there were two dull thuds. He counted slowly to ten and then rose to peer through the porthole.

Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two….

Nine little Red Chinamen, gone. The last two were dead heaps on the floor.

He ducked down low on the deck and crawled aft, past the hatch he had turned into a coffin. There was still one man to go. The tenth man, the biggest of them all.

A bird fluttered and squawked. And then the glade of trees was silent but for the soft sighing of the breeze. A thick bank of cloud obscured the moon. Everything was in utter darkness on the shore.

Nick crouched behind the shallow bulkhead screening himself from view. The blue light would make him a sitting duck if he so much as raised his head. And yet he could scarcely put it out at this stage.

A new sound began with a low trilling and” then built into a fluting bird call that rose and fell in the cool night air. It ended in tense silence and Nick went on waiting, mind racing and muscles taut. There was someone out there and it had to be Judas, and the sound was a signal of some sort. But what in God’s name was the answering signal?

The sound came again; rising, falling, dying away. Silence settled again.

He had to do something, answer somehow.

Nick pursed his lips. A low, trilling sound came out of them, a sound that built into a fluting bird call that rose and fell like the call from the glade, then drifted into silence.

There was a rustle. Something moved among the trees — moved away from him. Wrong answer!

He cursed softly and flung himself over the side to land lightly on the jetty in a running crouch. Harsh sound spat past his ear but he was ready for it. Wilhelmina spat back as he zigzagged rapidly along the sagging pier and flung himself toward the boathouse, then around it toward the grove of trees and the sound of running footsteps. The splat of fire came back at him and Wilhelmina answered sharply, aiming at the little burst of flame.

Then suddenly the bursts of flame were gone and he could no longer even hear the sound of footsteps. He paused for a moment, tuning eyes and ears into the silent darkness, and then he heard the unmistakable sound of a car door opening. A motor raced, and he ran toward it with Wilhelmina nosing out in front of him and his feet picking out a path between the trees. Judas’s car, of course, and Judas was making a getaway!

The first shot sang past his ear before he even saw the car — the first shot of a fusillade that sent him belly-down to the ground and pumping shots into the dim shape of a streamlined sports car that stood there with motor running, lights out, and windows spitting bullets in all directions.

He pumped lead into the tires and guts of the car before he realized with a shock of horror that the bullets were still spewing wildly in all directions and also that the car was not moving so much as an inch. Then he crawled toward it frantically, beneath the aimless spray of bullets — and saw that the car was empty. No Judas! Nick swore again, this time out loud, and snaked his way below the spray of fire in search of the other cars he knew must be there somewhere.

He found them both, after a minute or two. First, a bug-shaped Volkswagen, deep in the trees, and empty, then a large sedan, also empty.

That left Judas — but what did it leave Nick?

The decoy shots from the rigged sports car stopped suddenly, and again there was absolute silence. Nick turned and tore out of the glade like a demoniacal hunter after his prey, his mind racing. If Judas had intended to use one of the other cars he would have done so already, while Carter was shooting back at the decoy fusillade. But he had not. So that left Judas with a choice of two things to do: One. Get out of here on foot — and that was crazy. Two. Use the lake — and that made sense.

It made such inevitable, awful sense that he was hardly surprised to hear the sound of the cabin cruiser’s motor churning as he rounded the corner of the boathouse and ran like a madman toward the jetty. He was still running when the boat pulled away from its moorings and tore off half of the ancient jetty behind it, and he fired off his last two shots as he ran along what was left of it. The slugs slammed into the wheelhouse and the man at the wheel ducked quickly, then turned around, and laughed wildly. The face could have belonged to any rather ugly man — but it was the face of Hakim’s sketch. And the compact body, one arm outstretched and blazing fire, was that of the elusive Judas.

Shots skimmed past Nick’s head and searing flame burned through his shoulder but he hardly felt it through the blaze of his own rage and frustration. Yards ahead of him the motor picked up speed and the wake of the boat rocked what was left of the rotting pier.

There was still a chance — one desperate chance. Nick plunged into the water and began swimming furiously. The motor coughed and surged and the wake rolled over him in billowing waves. He buried his face in the water and kicked mightily, pounding his way powerfully through the darkness like an avenging torpedo. For a moment it seemed that he was gaining. And then the engine roared triumphantly; the boat shook and heaved and sped away from him as if jet-propelled, and left him in a maelstrom of seething waves and spray. He trod water, grimacing as he watched it go. It skimmed away with incredible speed, and through the exultant sound of its departure he thought he could hear the peal of high-pitched laughter.

For a moment longer he watched it shrinking into the distance. And then, seething with anger, he churned his way across the inlet in his waterlogged clothes and dragged himself, dripping onto the shore.

Nine down, and one to go.

* * *

The morning brought with it a gruesome story of an ancient cabin cruiser abandoned on the Canadian side of Lake Erie with two dead men in its tiny cabin. But of the man who must have piloted the vessel there was no sign even through the search for him had started very soon after his escape across the lake.

“But he can’t have gotten far,” said Nick, staring sightlessly at the bluish smoke rings wafting toward the ceiling of his motel room. The AXE “copter was hangared at Buffalo airport nearby and he was ready to use it again at a moment’s notice. Police had cordoned off the lake inlet and radiation experts were working busily in the boathouse where they had found much of West Valley’s missing material. “He wouldn’t want to go far. If he’s got something set up for tonight — the final panic push, in whatever form it may take — he must be planning to do it in this general area. Or why else gather his men at the lake? No, sir. My best bet, as long as you’ve got everything else set up, is to wait right here and be ready to pounce. He’s somewhere in the New York-Ontario region, and I’d stake my life on that.”

“Hope you don’t have to,” Hawk said grimly, chewing savagely at the end of his cigar. “And I hope you’re right. Oh, I have everything set up, all right. Takes time, but by dusk the whole country’ll be ready to swing into action. Hope to God tonight will see the end of this thing. You heard about the radiation riots in Berkeley, in L.A.? Yes — people killing each other in the streets, for God’s sake! I can only pray that the President’s speech will calm things down. Heaven knows it’s true that the worst is over, but will they believe it?”

“They’ve got to,” Nick said harshly. “But if we don’t stop this thing tonight — they won’t.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

And Then There Were…?

Julia sighed luxuriously and stretched out on the bed beside him like a waking kitten. Her tanned fingers stroked the length of his body and her breasts rose and fell voluptuously as if they had just been treated to a delicious experience. Which, indeed, they had.

“Sinful,” she murmured huskily. “Fiddling while Rome burns. Why are we so sinful, Carter?”

“Because we like it,” Nick said cheerfully. He grinned at her and tousled her hair, and then rolled lightly off the bed to land on his feet on the thick carpeting of the motel room. “But sin time’s over for a while, sweetheart.” He flicked a switch and flooded the room with light. “Tune in to AXE H.Q., will you? And find out what’s going on in the world. I’m going to take a shower. My bones tell me we’re going to see some action soon.”

She watched the rippling muscles of his athlete’s body as he padded nakedly into the bathroom, and gave a little sigh as she turned on the AXE radio. His head was still heavily bandaged from the Montreal explosion and now he had a new thick patch of adhesive on his shoulder. Another day, another scar. And each new assignment brought another duel with death. Some day — maybe on this job, maybe on some other — death was bound to win. Those were the odds. And he had been playing this deadly game for far too long already.

So, for that matter, had she.

Julia pulled her flimsy robe slowly about her tawny shoulders and the crackling voices of AXE’s general wave length told her of LSD in a Jersey reservoir and air pollution in Springfield. Here, a radiation scare, there, a little hot box found; somewhere else, an angry citizens’ meeting that degenerated into a riot. All day long the news services had been spreading the word that the situation was under control. But the word was vague and unconvincing… because it was not quite true. There was still one shadowy figure unaccounted for. And still unanswered were the basic questions: Who is doing this to us, and why? To what end? Was this a war of nerves, or a prelude to attack?

She, Julia Baron, knew more about the who and what and why than any woman in the United States, with the possible exception of Valentina Sichikova, and even she, Julia, was uneasy about what she did not know. How much worse, she thought, shivering slightly and pulling the robe more closely around her, not to know anything at all — to be looking out into the night and wondering what unknown menace waited there.

Nick was singing in the shower. She smiled faintly to herself and rose from the bed to gaze through the window. It was dark outside with the darkness of early evening in late fall, but splashed with brightness from a million lights in homes and along the highways. She found herself praying that they would stay lit.

The hissing splash of the shower stopped and only the voices of AXE communicators filled the room. Nick padded in, wrapping a towel around his waist, and squatted on the floor with a soulful look on his face.

“Dear God,” Julia said resignedly. “Breathing exercises at a time like this?”

“Your fault,” he said cheerfully. “You take my breath away.”

He concentrated for long moments and she watched him in silence, admiring the masculine beauty of his body and loving every line of it.

At last he rose and flicked two switches on the AXE radio, one to kill the voices and the other to open the channel through which his own messages were to come.

“Enough of that,” he said, toweling himself briskly. “It’s depressing to listen to, and pointless. Sorry I asked for it.”

“That’s the least of what you’ve asked for, Nick,” she said quietly. “Are you ever going to get out of this business?”

“There’s only one way out of it,” he said shortly, and began to dress.

He glanced at his watch as he strapped it on. “About time for the President’s speech,” he said. “Let us sincerely hope that he can produce both soothing and effective words for “mah fella countrymen.” Too bad we can’t tell the truth about what we already know.”

“Proof,” she said shortly, and snapped on the television set.

“Yeah, proof,” he added bitterly. “Chinese bodies all over the lot, and we still need proof!”

“—live from Washington,” the announcer’s voice boomed loudly. Julia turned the volume down. Then she began to dress in her usual brisk way as the voice from the handsome face on the screen went over the events of the past few days.

“And now — the President of the United States.”

There was a flurry of activity on the rostrum as mikes were adjusted, cameras moved in closer.

Nick and Julia sat side by side upon the bed.

The familiar figure filled the screen and solemnly gazed out upon his audience of millions.

“Mah fella Amurricans,” the well-known voice began, and there was benevolence and confidence in its calm tones, “a great man of our own times and our own country once told us that we have nothing to fear but fear itself. I am here to tell you tonight that we in this great country of ours have nothing to fear, not even fear itself—” The voice abruptly died.

The lips went on moving but now no sound came from them.

“God, what’s happening!” Julia cried, as the light in the room became a weird yellow glow. The image on the screen slowly faded and disappeared, and the yellow glow became pitch-blackness.

Nick was on his feet, grabbing the AXE radio.

“This is it!” he rapped. “Don’t move from here. Let you know if I need you. Look after yourself.”

His lips brushed her cheek in the darkness and the radio beeped at him.

“Don’t worry,” she whispered. “I brought candles. You come back. Please, Nick — come back.”

“I always come back,” he said, and then he was gone.

Julia turned on her own transistor radio and the two battery-powered lamps they had brought with them. Then she opened the curtains and let the light play out across the grounds of the motel. Already she could hear the chop of the approaching helicopter. Headlights from the cars parked outside the cabin doors began to turn on, two by two, and in the glow of their light she could see Nick racing past them toward the wide oval lawn in front of the motel.

The town of Buffalo was in total darkness. Wherever Julia turned there was darkness, a frightening, eerie blackness broken only intermittently by shafts of light from ears.

Nick ran with the radio to his car and his eyes on the sky. The winking lights were already lowering toward him.

Hawk’s voice pounded at his ear… extremely serious power drain over the same area last November, plus Washington this time. Standby crews ready, started immediate instrumentation check. Nothing definite, as yet. Parts of Canada out, most of New York, Michigan, Massachusetts. Pennsylvania, part of Texas, for the love of—! Hold it a minute.”

Nick held, positioning the radio inside his jacket as he waited and pulled the miniature flare gun from his pocket. It spewed light over the lawn and the “copter chugged down toward him with its sling ladder swinging.

“Report from Washington,” said Hawk, and now his voice held an odd kind of excitement. “Blackout there nothing to do with the rest. Device found near local power station: electronic timer. Could have been set at any time. Likely the same with Texas, too. We’re checking. That leaves the Northeastern chain, as before. State police, national guards-men, et cetera, all in operation as you suggested. Emergency systems — Wait!”

Nick used the waiting time to swing himself into the sling seat of the ladder and wave upward. The ladder rose rapidly.

“Carter!” Hawk’s voice roared in his ear. It sounded exultant. “Instrument check indicates tremendous flow of current to the north, as before. Not finely pinpointed as yet, but odds are great that the trouble started within the area of the Falls. Seems that the Green Point power plant was the first to go. Happens to be a major link in the chain and only too easily accessible from outside though proof against remote devices. It looks as though your hunch was right. Get moving!”

“I’m moving,” said Nick, swinging himself into the chopper.

“Where to, old buddy?” asked AXEman pilot AI Fisher.

Nick told him.

Al stared at him as if he had lost his mind.

“You crazy, Nick? What makes you think that’s where he’ll go? And how in the hell are we going to find him if he does?”

“Not we — just me,” said Nick. “You’ll drop me. Now get the lead out of your pants and let me see you fly this thing.”

He busied himself with a few small preparations as they gained speed and altitude. When he was through with them he looked down at the darkness below.

Already, it was less oppressive than before. The airport was awash with light. Great beams of brightness cut through the city streets, and several buildings gave off a cheerful glow. Banks of moving lights trailed solidly through the streets. And even as he watched, new patches of brightness sprang into brilliant life.

He allowed himself a momentary flash of satisfaction. At least this time they had been ready for it. Every resource in the country had been mobilized ahead of time, every available man in uniform alerted, every cop, every fireman, every guardsman, every training unit, warned to stand by and man emergency lighting systems in cities and villages and along the nation’s highways; every responsible state official briefed, every sound truck put on a standby basis, every capability of an enormously capable nation called to a state of readiness in a few short hours — except the millions of private citizens who had been living off rumors all day. They had not been warned — in case of false alarm, in case Judas had decided to postpone his curtain scene.

But apparently he had not.

Nick’s brief glow of satisfaction cooled into a cool appraisal of the situation. He had no more idea than anyone else where Judas was and where he would head. He only had a hunch, based on the flimsiest of evidence that easily could turn to dust in his hands as the night wore on.

When he had boarded the ancient cruiser at the rotting wharf he had seen a set of oilskins neatly folded on the wheelhouse shelf. Afterwards when the boat had been discovered abandoned with its dead, the oilskins no longer were there.

“Does a man need oilskins to go swimming?” he had asked himself.

No, he had decided, that isn’t what he does with them.

* * *

The sound of the falls drowned out the gentle chopping of the helicopter as Nick lowered himself to the ground and waved the ladder away. He was across the Canadian border and the Green Point power plant lay exact 2.2 miles away from him. A man could walk it. And even if the man used a car for part of that short distance he would still have to walk for a good ten to twelve minutes from there to reach the one short strip along the roaring river from which he could make his getaway.

It had been short, quick ride from Buffalo by AXE-powered helicopter.

Nick scrambled down the Slope, glad of the boots and slicker that guarded him against the cool night wind and the icy spray. It was a cold, dark November night, and the lights of Ontario were few and far between. Niagara Falls was still in total darkness, but for the dim glow of auxiliary lighting from the other side.

He reached the water’s edge and glided along the bank beside the first stretch of relatively calm water, hunting by faint starlight for the boat he was sure must be there.

But it was not there.

He knew that, after the first few moments, because there were few places where a boat could be left and he had checked all of them in the dimness along the riverbank. Maybe farther downriver…?

No! Judas would need to have the boat handy.

Nick turned upriver, back the way he had come, threading his way through bushes and boulders as sharp needlepoints of spray that stung his face and, building into showers, poured down over his body. Perhaps Judas had intended to steal the Maid of the Mist, he thought. If so, the bastard was out of luck, since she was already laid up for the season and undergoing repairs. Anyway, Judas would have known that.

Nick frowned as he peered through the flying spray. No boat, then. There could hardly be one moored under the falls — it would get completely waterlogged in minutes, supposing it was physically possible to get it there. Then what… There could be no escape through the thundering water unless Judas intended to shoot the rapids. But Judas must surely know he could never live through that. Maybe he intended to plunge over the falls in a barrel. It would be just like Judas to have devised something new in barrels; crashproof, unsinkable, insulated against shock and weather, equipped with automatic weapons to belch out instant death to all unwelcome visitors.

The wild idea was somehow a compelling one. Nick edged his way backwards out of the chilling shower of blinding spray and craned his neck to stare up at the lip of the falls. His mind picked up thoughts of water wings and personalized jet flying packs, then came back to brood on barrels. It WAS possible. It would take a little planning, of course, but —

He gaped upward, not quite believing his eyes in spite of what he just had been considering. For in the murkiness of night and spray, the thing that came tumbling down from 150-odd feet above him had neither size nor shape, but it was something alien to the water and it bounced and rolled and tumbled as if with a galvanic life of its own.

And then, as the blur came closer and soared down past him, he saw that it was neither barrel-shaped nor man-sized. It was nothing but a suitcase.

A suitcase. One of the matching set of ten, maybe?

It was far beyond his reach and traveling swiftly through the roaring waters. But what it meant was far more important than what it had inside. It could mean that Judas was near and had dumped his bag to travel light.

To where? Where was he?

Nick strained his ears through the deafening crash of the rushing water. It was useless, quite useless. Too noisy to hear Judas, too dark to see him.

He started climbing laboriously up the steep slope to a rocky, bush-tangled outcropping from which he could command a better perspective of the falls and the river. Heavy spray drenched him to the bone as he climbed, and washed away the last traces of his enthusiasm. Suddenly he was convinced that Judas could not possibly come this way, that even the suitcase was a false hope, just a piece of garbage carelessly dumped by nobody in particular, maybe hours or days before and many river miles away.

Nick pulled himself onto the outcropping and stared up into the darkness, thinking. He must be near, said the insistent voice in his mind. He must have taken the oilskins for a reason. But suppose he was not going to try heading downriver. Suppose he was going to try to cross it. Not by Rainbow Bridge, though. That was heavily guarded at both ends. So that left… That left the impossible.

Nick frowned again. There was an elevator descent from Goat Island, between the Canadian and American Falls, to the Cave of the Winds. From the Cave of the Winds there was an opening to a narrow, low-railed bridge — little more than a catwalk — that traveled a short distance behind the splashing curtain of the falls. But that would not be too much help to Judas. Even supposing he somehow had succeeded in getting to Goat Island, disposing of its guards and activating the locked elevator, he still could not reach either shore by that tiny bridge, which was hardly more than a walk, and it reached nowhere near the banks on either side.

He was still chewing over possibilities and impossibilities in his mind and straining his eyes into the darkness when light hit his face like a sudden, savage blow. Brilliant, multicolored lights blazed and swirled as if the falls had been transformed into a great bubbling rainbow. He blinked rapidly and refocused, and for one split second he saw a bulky figure with startled and rainbow-hued face sliding down the bank some thirty feet away from him. Then it disappeared like a wraith, deep into a cascade of tumbling water.

But that was impossible! There was nothing there but the raging water and certain death by drowning.

Or maybe a cave…?

Nick was clawing his way along the cliffside on the trail of the incredible. The bulky figure had been Judas, and he had plunged into that boiling cauldron, so there had to be some hiding place.

Within seconds Nick was at the spot where he had caught the fleeting glimpse of Judas. He stared into the leaping turmoil of water. But that was all he could see, just water, roiling and plunging and lashing him with its spray. The famous lights of Niagara Falls played a pictorial symphony before his eyes, but they showed him nothing.

He clutched the rock face and edged forward into the drenching drapery of falling water, breath held and eyes half-blinded by the gigantic, everlasting shower. To one side of him there was slippery rock and he felt along it with desperate hope. But there was no cave. He was half-drowned before he realized that there was no hiding place but the water itself. And it was pouring down before his eyes between him and the fleeing Judas.

There was only one possible answer. He groped back toward the bank and wasted more precious minutes before finding what he sought. His fingers told him what his eyes could not see through the cascade — he felt the end of a length of sturdy nylon rope attached securely to the out-jutting root of one of the enormous, indestructible trees that raised their giant heads high along the bank. Judas had made good use of his spare time that day.

He drew a deep breath and headed back into the downpour, this time following the rope. Cut it? — No — no way of telling whether Judas was still clutching it or not, with the water buffeting it in all directions and communicating its pressure through his hands.

The ground began to slope beneath him. He tightened his grip on the rope as the driving water clawed at him with a new burst of savagery, and it was just as well that he did because in that moment his feet were swept out from under him and he was dangling by his hands. He groped forward, swinging his feet for footholds, and found none. So that was the way it had to be; he was a monkey swinging from a rope, as Judas must have swung before him.

He clenched his teeth at the thought of a Judas waiting for him at the other end with a sharp knife ready to slash the cord and send him plunging into the wet hell that churned below. But he had no choice. He had to use the bridge that Judas had built, or lose him altogether.

Hand over hand, he followed the deadly rope trail. Sometimes the water spewed up under him; sometimes it dropped far below into a seething abyss. Once in a while he managed to draw breath as the curtain of water sprayed outward and past him. But, strain his eyes as he could, he caught no sign of Judas.

The damned rope seemed to be going on forever. His arms felt as though they were coming out of their sockets. How in hell had Judas managed this with his artificial hands? but they were tricky, those hands, maybe even better adapted for this kind of thing than human flesh.

His own hands were numbed by the time the roaring of the water suddenly changed character and he emerged through a fringe of spray into an area of calm behind the liquid wall. The end of the rope was attached to the little catwalk outside the Cave of the Winds. He swung toward it gratefully.

Then he saw Judas.

Judas had not stayed to cut the rope behind him. He was at the far end of the catwalk, half-obscured by spray and weirdly lit by the muted colors that filtered through the water. Apparently he had not had too much spare time that day, for he was still busy building the next section of his bridge.

Nick sucked in his breath at the sheer audacity of the man, at his maddening calmness and incredible skill under such fantastic circumstances. He must have been down here many times before without having been spotted, and he must have done quite a bit of practicing. He was shooting at something that Nick could not even see, but could only guess at.

It had to be the railing of the catwalk behind the American Falls.

The rocket-borne line snaked out again as Nick watched. This time it must have hit its target and looped tautly around it, because Judas gave it a sharp tug and then laid his weapon down beside him.

Nick lowered himself onto the narrow metal walk and reached inside his dripping slicker for his Luger.

Judas tied the end of his line to the catwalk railing. Now he had another bridge to swing across. Spray blanked him out for a moment as Nick crept toward him. Then he was in the clear again, and this time there was a knife in Judas’s hand and Judas was coming back to cut the first of his lines.

Even in that dim and eerie light and across that misty distance Judas was an easy target. Nick crouched low on the slippery walk and squeezed Wilhelmina gently.

And then a shift of the wind suddenly immersed him in a blanket of water and momentarily obscured his vision. He thought he heard a cry, but he could not be sure.

Silently, he crept on through the cold, shimmering shower, crouching low and listening. The scene cleared abruptly as the wall of water fell away, and there was the catwalk with no one on it but Carter.

Spray played gently over the far end of the walk and over the taut line that waited to be used. Beyond it was darkness, tinged with faint color.

Nick ducked instinctively. Judas now knew that someone was after him, and Judas had not left. He was somewhere in that darkness…

The shots burst low at the level of Nick’s knees. He rolled galvanically, screamed once, and fired one wild shot back in the direction of the little bursts of flame. Judas was over the edge of the catwalk, his body in the water, aiming up at him. There was no chance at all of hitting him.

Nick fired once to show that he was still in there pitching. Then flame seared his thigh and he rolled over once again with a loud and agonized shout — and he slid into the water with the loudest splash he could manage. He ducked his head and waited.

And waited…

He started edging his way through the churning water alongside the catwalk. Wilhelmina was soaking-wet and useless, but that did not matter any more. Judas was on his way. Judas had bought Nick’s little death scene with shout and splash, and now Judas was doing his monkey trick across the rope.

Nick knew he was right by the time he had worked his way to the end of the catwalk. Judas was gone, and the rope was still taut and quivering.

Deep in the water, Nick drew Hugo from his sheath. He stared through the spray and caught one brief, dim glimpse of a monkeylike figure swinging high behind the crashing screen of water, well on its way to the catwalk on the American side. Then the vision vanished.

Hugo’s razor-edged blade bit deep into the rope.

Nick raised himself in the water and drew a deep breath.

“Goodbye, Judas!” he yelled exultantly, and the last strand parted at Hugo’s biting touch.

The end of the rope whiplashed back at Nick, but he scarcely felt it. Through the rushing roar of the water he heard a high-pitched scream, and he thought he heard a louder splash above the bubbling din. And then there was nothing to be heard but the thundering of the falls. The rope was limp in his hands.

“It is not, you understand, my favorite pastime,” Valentina Sichikova said apologetically. “But at least I did not have to hurt the man — apart from that small concussion I gave him in that motor cabin. Oh, motel, yes? So. Motel. I play soft music to him, one note, one note, one note, and I use a little drug. That one note, you see, is like the dripping water of the Chinese torture. Too much of that no man can stand. I could not listen myself. Until he talked.”

“Until he talked,” Hawk echoed. “And then you got the one key we were looking for. Your health, Madam Sichikova.” He raised his glass.

“Your friendship, Comrade,” she said quietly. “Long life and good companionship for all of us.”

“Long life, indeed,” said Hakim warmly. “Although how that may be possible in your line of buiness I cannot begin to understand.” He clutched his bound ribs with a theatrical gesture and made a hideous grimace. “My good mother warned me against taking up with dubious company. And see how right she was!”

“Your good mother should have warned me,” said Nick, patting Julia’s knee and ignoring Hawk’s reproving stare. “Her little boy’s a troublemaker from way back. Why, if it hadn’t been for you —”

“We wouldn’t be sitting here right now,” Hawk interrupted. “Heaven only knows what we would have been doing. Crawling out of some bomb shelter, perhaps, and staring at the ruins. Yes, this could have been L-Day. But it isn’t. So let’s run this fellow through to the end and then get out of here to celebrate in style.” He waved his glass around the comfortable lounge of AXE’s brownstone branch office near Columbus Circle and said, with unaccustomed bonhomie, “Office parties are all right in their place, but this occasion deserves the very best. A real old-fashioned, rip-roaring, capitalistic celebration!” His usually cold eyes were warm and he was smiling for the first time in many days.

Nick grinned at him and clinked glasses with Julia. The face on the TV monitor against the wall was bland and expressionless, almost trancelike, but the words burbled unrestrained through the pale, thin lips. Once Kwong Yu Shu had started to talk it had been difficult to stop him.

“… to use the natural resources of the country,” he gabbled. “Not necessary bring very much equipment, always find what we need wherever we go. Very efficient, very economical scheme. So we have small group, ten men…” He had told them that before, describing in great detail the clever departure of the nine from Moscow, their meeting with Judas in Egypt, the brilliance of their plan for changing their looks and quietly infiltrating the United States. Valentina’s little drug-and-music therapy, combined with the knowledge that he was very much alone in an unfriendly world, had brought Kwong to a state of uncontrollable volubility.

“It was plan by Judas and General Kuo Hsi Tang,” he sang enthusiastically. “First, campaign of terror to demoralize imperialistic dogs. At the peak of this, a vast blackout as final shattering blow and also as what you call a “dry-run.” If we succeed, then we ready to go ahead with plan for L-Day. L-Day may be two, three days after dress rehearsal. L-Day is landing day, day for landing with secret weapon under cover of darkness and terror. How to resist when panic is in streets, friend fighting friend, families dying from inexplicable dis-ease? Impossible! Oh, good scheme; very good scheme. And some day…”

“That’s it,” said Hawk, flicking the remote switch and fading Kwong Yu Shu back into oblivion. “My one regret is that he genuinely doesn’t seem to know anything about that secret weapon. But it does look as though we’re safe from it for a while at least, and we know a little something now about preparing ourselves for emergencies. Yes, I think we’ve nipped this thing fairly neatly in the bud. Shall we go?”

They rose, the five of them, and drained their glasses.

To the ten who couldn’t make it to the party,” said Julia wryly, still holding out her glass. “And to the five of us who nearly didn’t. They picked themselves an unlucky number, didn’t they? Ten, as in Indian boys, biting the dust one after the other until—”

“Until D-Day,” Hakim said quietly. “Death Day. And then there were none.”

Hawk chomped thoughtfully on his dead cigar.

“That right, Carter?” he said quizzically. “And then there were none?”

Nick stared back at him. “That’s right,” he said firmly. “None. But…” He shrugged. “Strange things have been known to happen.”

“Ah, come now, Nickska!” Valentina boomed. “You were sure at first. Why do you doubt now? It is impossible that the man could have survived that plunge.”

“Maybe,” said Nick. “But you never know, with Judas.”

The End

Content

Nick Carter
The Weapon of Night

CHAPTER ONE Strange Things Happen When The Lights Are Low

CHAPTER TWO Valentina The Great

CHAPTER THREE The Vanishing Nine

CHAPTER FOUR Hakim The Hideous

CHAPTER FIVE Lady In A Cage

CHAPTER SIX Life Is Full Of Ups And Downs

CHAPTER SEVEN Somewhere There’s A Someone

CHAPTER EIGHT Nine Minus Two Leaves — Eight

CHAPTER NINE The Tenth Man

CHAPTER TEN Two Versus Two

CHAPTER ELEVEN Meeting For Murder

CHAPTER TWELVE And Then There Were…?