Nick Carter

The Mark of Cosa Nostra

Dedicated to The Men of the Secret Services of the United States of America

One

For me it started in a small resort just outside the town of Flagstaff, Arizona. AXE has one of its training schools there. There wasn’t much activity around the resort itself because this was spring and the action in the surrounding mountains didn’t really begin until the first snow. It was an area for skiing, for snow bunnies and warm rum, fireplaces in wood lodges with snowflakes floating against windows, and the smell of toasting marshmallows.

But this was spring, and the snow people had not yet begun their trek to the mountain town of Flagstaff. The AXE resort was almost a mile high and looked far down to the town.

I was told to disguise myself as soon as I arrived, according to a photo handed me. I studied the picture in my room while waiting for the man from make-up. The name of the face was Thomas Acasano and I would get to know it well during the next week.

It was an interesting face. The eyes were set well back in the head. The eyebrows were bushy and like the thick mustache and equally thick head of hair, they were the color of salt and pepper. The nose was Roman, the lips sensuous and full. It was the face of a man who seemed to know the ways of the world and took life on no terms but his own. This was not a face you would find working behind a desk. Nor would you find it smiling at a playful child. You would expect to see it looking down at a freshly killed corpse. It was a cold face that belonged behind the sights of a weapon. I was going to wear that face.

In the following week I learned about the man that went with the face. It took two days to make me look exactly like him. Our bodies were about the same but some wrinkling had to be done to the backs of my hands and neck, and I had to get used to wearing contact lenses of an almost tan color. Since I wouldn’t be involved with anyone who knew intimate details about the man, I was allowed to keep my own personal weapons: Wilhelmina, my stripped-down Luger, in her holster under my left arm; Hugo, my thin stiletto, in his special sheath attached to my left arm, so when I shrugged he would fall from the sheath into my hand ready for use; Pierre, my tiny gas bomb, resting comfortably between my legs like a third testicle, ready to release its super-deadly gas within five seconds after I twisted the two halves and got rid of it. Pierre never gave me much time to get the hell away, but his work was sudden and permanent.

It seemed that Thomas Acasano was the leader of one finger of the Cosa Nostra complex. Why I had to become a Mafia leader I still didn’t know, even after a week of studying the man. I had learned the background of Acasano, a widower, a man who rose from being a bookie runner to his present position of family boss in a New York suburb. He was known to the Cosa Nostra as a man of integrity. He would not rat on a friend. He was of even temperament and often acted as referee to other family squabbles. Rumors around the Mafia were that Acasano would someday achieve greatness as a family leader. But for now, at forty-eight, he was considered too young to assume a great deal of control.

I brushed up on my Italian and, after a week, I knew as much about Thomas Acasano as AXE knew. But I didn’t know where he was right then, and I didn’t know why I had become him. I was told all these things would be explained by Hawk during our next meeting.

I should explain how it is with these AXE training establishments. Sometimes they are used to groom an experienced agent for a coming assignment, but their main function is to train new AXE agents. There are probably a hundred of them scattered all over the world. But they do not remain in one spot for long. The places are constantly changed for obvious reasons. Any kind of permanent establishment other than AXE headquarters in Washington could be discovered and infiltrated by an enemy force.

The training of new agents is a twenty-four-hour job. They must be on the alert at all times because they never know when someone is going to throw them a curve. It was even the same with experienced agents there to pick up a new assignment; they had to be ready for surprises and attacks. It was a reflex test.

That was how I met Tanya.

I had been at the Flagstaff establishment for almost a full week and I had all the available information on Acasano. Since the first two days I had constantly used the Acasano disguise. If anyone knew Nick Carter, they would have a rough time recognizing me behind the get-up. The grounds around my rooms were green and lush. The mesquite seemed to grow everywhere. They were full of little green needles. All the walks were lined with these bushes and some distance behind them stood a forest of pines.

I had just left my quarters after a final briefing on Thomas Acasano’s eating habits. This briefing had been given to me by tape played on my own recorder. I left the door locked and walked along a mesquite-lined path breathing in the crisp mountain air. There was a slight bite to the air; it seemed almost to crackle with crystal clearness. A few clouds looking like fluffy pillows floated across a deep blue sky. Ahead of me I saw a group of twelve girls dressed in shorts and blouses moving in formation to the large green field far to my right. Physical fitness was one of the most important aspects of an agent’s training. I watched with a smile as they moved off in a half-trot.

The disguise was beginning to feel comfortable. I had even grown used to the thick mustache. As I walked I thought about Thomas Acasano and his role in La Cosa Nostra. And I looked forward to the meeting with Hawk and getting my questions answered.

I felt the movement rather than heard it. An electrical charge zipped across my shoulder blades and I automatically pinpointed where it was coming from. I could hear it now. The mesquite behind me and to my right was stirring. This only took split fractions of a second. Then I heard someone coming up quickly behind me.

I was ready. I did not pause or break my step. I kept walking casually until whoever it was got close enough for me to do something. Then I moved quickly.

I jumped to my left and pivoted. The two arms that were going to circle my neck came shooting in front of me. I reached for them, got hold of both slender wrists, then took a step backward and pulled. It was then I noticed the girl connected to the arms.

When I pulled, she started running to keep up with the force, but she was being pulled faster than her legs would carry her. She started to pitch forward and would have gone down if I hadn’t had hold of her wrists.

I turned completely around, pulling her with me. When I stopped I pushed her arms out and released them. She spun twice while moving down the path, then she stumbled right into the sharp needles of a mesquite bush. She let out a tiny squeal and disappeared behind the bush.

Everything turned quiet. I could hear a bluejay off in the forest somewhere. A hint of the girl’s perfume still lingered around me. I moved toward the bush, frowning. Had she taken off to where I couldn’t see her? Maybe she was hurt.

I thought back to what she was wearing. White blouse, dark brown skirt, brown loafers. And what had she looked like? Young, very young, under twenty-one. Long, lustrous brown hair, pert upturned nose, green eyes, not too tall, about five-four, ample curves, very nice legs. Remembering was good practice for agents, it burned the fatty tissue from the brain cells. But where had she gone?

I stepped over to the bush and started around it.

“Hyaa!” she shouted, and came at me from the left, arm raised for a karate blow which I guessed was supposed to break my collarbone.

I waited for her patiently. She was a little thing and her heart really seemed to be in it. When the blow came down I reached out to grab the wrist. That’s when she surprised me.

She stopped the swing in mid-air, twisted at the waist, bent over and shot out her left foot. That loafer caught me right in the stomach. Then she quickly followed with another karate blow that I had to hustle to break. It came at me from the side in a long arc. Maybe she wanted to chop my head off at the neck. I was still recovering from the loafer in the stomach when I saw the blow coming.

I stepped inside it and got my arms around her and hung on. We turned around twice, then went down in the soft grass at the side of the path. I had her around the waist and was holding her tight. My cheek was pressed against hers. She immediately gave up the super-female-agent attack and reverted to what she knew best: the ordinary female habit of kicking, slapping, and scratching.

“Let me go, you creep!” she said.

I held onto her until she calmed down. When she was limp in my arms I moved my cheek far enough from hers to see her face clearly.

“Want to talk about it?” I asked.

“Damn you!” she answered.

I held onto her. “If you admit your little attack wasn’t successful, I’ll let you go.”

“Drop dead!”

“All right then. We stay just like this. Actually it isn’t too bad for me. You’re easy to hold and you smell good too.”

She pushed out her lower lip. “Damn,” she said. “I thought I was going to be the one to get the drop on the famous Nick Carter.”

I raised my eyebrows, bushy as they were. “And just how did you know I was Nick Carter?”

The pouting lip went back in. The tongue flicked out just enough to moisten the lips. A teasing look came into the green eyes. The voice dropped low when she spoke.

“Take me to your place and I’ll tell you,” said the young lady.

“Can you walk? Or would you like me to carry you?”

“What if I said my ankle hurt?”

I scooped her up in my arms and carried her back down the path. She was lighter than she looked. That is not to say she looked heavy, but she looked more filled out than she actually was. At first I had thought it might have been because she had foam-rubber help filling out those curves, but our little wrestling match proved to me she neither needed nor had such assistance.

“You look older than I thought,” she said. She had her head on my shoulder and was staring at my face.

“I’m wearing a disguise.”

“I know that, silly. But I mean besides that.”

I reached the door and told her to hug my neck while I let us in. When we were inside she dropped her feet to the floor, wrapped her arms around my neck and moved her lips along my jaw line until she found my lips. Her tongue darted in and out while she kept grinding her tiny body against me. When she stopped, there was barely enough room for a feather to get between us.

“Your ankle doesn’t hurt at all, does it?” I asked.

“Make love to me, Nick,” she answered. “Please.”

“Your problem is you’re too shy and backward. You have to learn to assert yourself. Be bold.”

“Make love to me. Undress me and take me to bed.”

“Thank you, but no,” I said. “Even if I have no particular feeling for the ladies I go to bed with, at least I prefer to know who they are. And I really prefer to like them.”

“Don’t you like me?” The lower lip was stuck out again.

“You attack me. You call me a creep. You tell me to drop dead. You say I’m older than you thought. And then you stand there and ask me if I like you. Yes, I like you. But I don’t even know you.”

“My name is Tanya. Now make love to me.”

With that she pressed her body closer and kissed me again. Since we had suddenly become old friends, I decided I might as well carry her off to bed.

When she was on her back with her long eyelashes blinking up at me, looking almost too innocent, she said, “Nick?”

I was unbuttoning her blouse. “Yes, Tanya.”

“You’ve made love to a lot of women, haven’t you?”

The blouse was open. She was wearing a white bra, all lacy with a tiny pink ribbon in the center where the two cups joined. “There have been one or two, yes.”

“How many?”

I frowned. “I never gave it much thought. I don’t keep score.”

“I’ll bet you can’t even remember the faces or names of most of them.”

“That’s right. Would you like to leave?”

She made a little groaning sound. “No. What are you doing to me?”

I was doing things to her all right. The bra was off and so was the blouse. My lips had found the lovely, plum-colored nipples. She was wearing stockings which I removed carefully, taking the loafers with them. And then the skirt. That was simple.

Her hands were moving over my chest. She kept digging her heels into the bed while little groans came from her.

“Please!” she whimpered. “Nick, darling, I don’t think I can wait much longer.”

She was wearing cute, powder-blue, lacy bikini panties. I got my thumbs under the waistband. I already began to feel the burning in my loins.

My thumb was under the waistband and I began to pull the panties down. The edge had already started past the soft, velvet thatch between her legs when I saw something else.

It was metal. As I pulled the panties down farther I saw that it was round like a gun barrel. It had been lying flat against her skin and when I pulled the panties past it, the thing sprung out aiming straight at me.

And then it went off like a loud cap pistol. Instinctively I jumped to my feet and looked down at myself. There was no bullet hole anywhere.

Tanya began to laugh. “If you could have seen your face,” she said. Then she sat up in the bed and reached for the phone. She dialed a number, then waited.

I put my hands on my hips and watched her. Any fire I had felt in my loins was out now.

Tanya shook her head at me. “I’m a new agent with AXE,” she said. “It’s lucky my gun was loaded with blanks or you would have been quite dead.”

She turned her attention to the phone. “Yes? This is Tanya. The panty gun has been tested and it works perfectly.”

I pulled out a cigarette and lit it.

Tanya hung up then immediately dialed again. She waited with her breasts outthrust, tapping her teeth with her fingernail. She wasn’t looking at me now. Then she said, “Yes, sir. I have made contact with Mr. Carter.”

Two

The cigarette was half smoked when Tanya hung up. She reached for her bra and put it around her, fastening it in the back.

“I’ll be working with you on this assignment, Nick,” she said as she made some last-minute adjustments to fill the bra cups.

“Oh?” I said. I felt like I had been used. It wasn’t a feeling I had often. And it wasn’t a feeling I particularly cared for.

I said, “I think we have some unfinished business here.”

She blinked at me while she pulled on the blouse and started buttoning it. “Really?”

“What we had started before your little cannon went bang at me.”

“Oh.” She climbed off the bed and started pulling on her stockings. “You’re handsome and all that, Nick. But after all, I am only nineteen. And you’re... well over thirty as I understand, right? You’re really much too old for me. Never trust anyone over thirty and all that. I really prefer younger men.” She smiled a quick smile. “No hard feelings?”

I mashed out the cigarette. “No hard feelings, Tanya. But Hawk had better have one hell of a good reason for teaming me up with anyone as young and inexperienced as you.”

She stiffened and stared at me with fire in her eyes. “I think what just happened shows I’m not too inexperienced.”

I thought for a while — she was right.

I gave her a smile. “O.K., but start having a little respect for your elders.”

At first she just stared at me, not knowing quite how to take it. Then the corners of her mouth worked up into a smile of her own. She gave me a short curtsy.

“Anything you say, sir.”

“Let’s go see Hawk.”

Tanya led me along the path toward the exercise field. The girls I had seen earlier were doing jumping jacks. When we reached the edge of the field we left the path and started across soft grass. I could see Hawk far ahead. He was standing near the exercising girls with his hands shoved into the pockets of a tan overcoat. He turned to watch us coming.

“Here he is, Mr. Hawk,” Tanya said.

“The disguise looks very good, Carter,” Hawk said.

His leathery face looked strangely at home out here in the mountain wilderness. The eyes studied me closely, then glanced at Tanya, and turned back to where the girls were exercising. He pulled one of his black cigars from a shirt pocket, peeled the cellophane and stuck one end between his teeth. He did not light it.

“Sir,” I said. “Why Thomas Acasano? Why a young girl like Tanya?”

Hawk kept looking at the girls. “Heroin, Carter. What do you know about it?”

There had been a brief on it a couple of months ago. Dry facts. Up until then I guess I knew as much, or as little, as anyone else about the stuff. I wondered if Hawk was testing me, trying to find out if I actually read those briefs sent out by headquarters.

I closed my eyes until all the facts and formulas were right there in my mind. “The chemical breakdown of heroin is C_21, H_23, NO_5,” I said. “It is a crystalline, odorless, bitter powder derived from morphine and used in medicine to relieve bronchitis and coughing. But it’s habit-forming; it can be sniffed as snow or injected directly into the blood stream as a solution. It’s soluble in both water and alcohol. How am I doing?”

“You’ve done your homework, Carter,” Hawk said. He turned just enough to look at me. The black stub of cigar was still clenched between his teeth. The girls had changed to doing pushups.

“Thank you, sir,” I said. If Hawk had been testing me, I evidently passed.

“All right,” he said. “That’s what heroin is. Now I’ll tell you what it can do. As you undoubtedly know, there is a great deal of drug abuse going on among our GIs stationed in Vietnam.”

“Sir?” Tanya interrupted. “Isn’t heroin being sold openly in Saigon?”

Hawk and I both looked at Tanya. She gave us a weak smile.

Hawk went on. “In Saigon, as Tanya pointed out, heroin is easily available. Pure heroin can be purchased for three dollars a vial; that same vial would cost three hundred dollars back here in the States. The result is there has been a spiraling death-rate among GIs due to overdoses. And the sale of the stuff is not just in dark alleys with whispered deals; it can be bought by asking for it in the teeming marketplaces of Cholon, or within blocks of the USO on central Saigon’s Street of Flowers.”

Hawk turned back to where the girls were doing deep knee bends. “A subcommittee on juvenile delinquency has begun an investigation into these GI deaths. In one thirty-day period in Saigon alone the investigators pinpointed thirty-three overdose deaths. And by the time the investigation is completed the death rate is expected to reach fifty a month.”

Hawk pulled the cigar from between his teeth. He studied it carefully while he patted his pockets for matches. He dug a match out, lit it, and touched it to the end of the cigar. The air around us clouded with the rank aroma of Hawk’s cigar smoke. When he had it going he said, “The drug problem in Vietnam has reached an outrageous level. All agencies have been working on the problem: Army and Navy Intelligence, the CIA, the FBI, and Senate subcommittees. All information gathered has been funneled to AXE. It has cost eight agents’ lives but we have backtracked the stuff. We know it’s coming from Turkey. And in tracing it back we’ve learned that it gets to Saigon from Mandalay in Burma. We backtracked further to Calcutta and then New Delhi in India, to Karachi in Pakistan, by ship through the Gulf of Oman, then the Persian Gulf, up the Tigris River to Bagdad in Iraq, then by plane to Istanbul, Turkey.” Hawk suddenly became quiet.

I noticed the girls were on their backs doing bicycle-pedaling exercises. I asked Hawk, “Do you think the source of the heroin is in Istanbul?”

Hawk shook his head. “In Istanbul five of the eight agents were killed, three CIA agents and two Naval Intelligence officers. It’s possible that is where the heroin originates, but the connection comes from somewhere else. All the agents came up with the name of one man. Rozano Nicoli. But whenever an agent started asking questions about the man, the agent was found shortly thereafter floating face down in the Black Sea. Cause of death was always the same, drowning. And an autopsy always revealed an overdose of heroin.”

I turned the name over. Rozano Nicoli. Hawk blew smoke up above him. Tanya stood silently beside me. I said, “So who is Thomas Acasano? He must be connected to all this somewhere.”

Hawk nodded. “You have assumed the role of Acasano because you are going to infiltrate the Mafia. We know the Cosa Nostra is the organization behind the shipments of heroin into Saigon.”

“I see,” I said. “And I guess I’ll go where the shipments really begin.”

“In Sicily,” Hawk said. “You won’t have to worry about discovery from the source of your disguise; Thomas Acasano is quite dead. As to who he is — he is the only man considered a close friend to Rozano Nicoli.”

Three

Hawk turned his back on the exercising girls. He looked to the north where mountain peaks were dusted with snow. The black cigar stub was still clenched tightly between his teeth.

“We’ve learned a few things about Rozano Nicoli,” he said. “For one, he commutes regularly by plane from Palermo in Sicily back and forth to Istanbul. Before our agents were killed, they each had the same thing to report. Nicoli is the head of a family, or branch, of La Cosa Nostra in Sicily.”

Tanya said, “Then he must be the one behind all that heroin going into Saigon.”

Hawk kept looking at the mountains. “It’s very likely. He spent five years in America some time ago. It’s been reported that he was once a high-ranking member of the old Capone family in Chicago, then he was connected with Raoul (The Waiter) Dicca, who followed Frank Clitti as boss when Capone went to jail.” He paused long enough to look at me steadily, his wrinkled, leathery face showing no expression. “Some of these names won’t mean anything to either you or Tanya. They are before your time.”

He pulled the cigar stub from his mouth and held it at his side as he talked. His eyes looked at the mountain peaks again.

“It was Nicoli who went with Joseph Boranko from Brooklyn to Phoenix, Arizona. Boranko put a lid on most of the Southwest, and Nicoli thought he was going to get a slice of it. He was sadly disappointed. There was an ambitious young man in the organization by the name of Carlo Gaddino, who handled nineteen contracts for the Cosa Nostra. He operated out of Las Vegas, and it was he who put an end to Boranko’s life and career. A double-barrel shotgun was used, one barrel removing the forehead and left eye, the other eliminating the chin and half the neck.”

Tanya’s green eyes flinched a little.

“Gaddino made his aims clear,” Hawk went on. “He was taking over every operation in America, and he was coming after Nicoli because Nicoli had been connected with Boranko. Nicoli figured the climate in America was getting too warm. He left for Sicily the day after Boranko’s large and lavish funeral. The idea was for him to lay low long enough to make his peace with Gaddino.”

“And he hasn’t been back in America since?” I asked.

Hawk shook his head. “No. After he left, Gaddino really began to move. He left a trail of bodies all over America. Contracts were issued for family bosses in Los Angeles, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Chicago, and just about every major city in the nation. Within two years he was the unquestioned leader of the national La Cosa Nostra. He could afford to be generous, so he did not push the contract against Rozano Nicoli. Everybody prospered, including Nicoli.”

There was a pause. I noticed the girls had completed their exercises and were jogging off the field. Hawk continued to look at the mountains. Tanya was looking at me.

The cigar was dropped on the grass and mashed with Hawk’s shoe. He turned to look at me. His eyes looked deeply concerned.

“Many people don’t realize, Carter, how truly far-reaching the powers of La Cosa Nostra are. The methods used by Carlo Gaddino to take over simply would not work today.”

I nodded in agreement. “There would be too much publicity now if the boss of every major city was killed. The FBI would be on him so fast he wouldn’t know what hit him.”

“Precisely. There is something else, too. While the Cosa Nostra has expanded in most areas, there is one in which they have retreated. Narcotics. The Bureau of Narcotics has had a get-tough attitude toward the families trafficking in drugs. So, although controlling much of the importing of heroin, the families have increasingly left the wholesale market of drugs in America to the Negro and Puerto Rican underworld.”

Tanya frowned. “Then why are they pushing heroin into Saigon?”

“Not they, my dear, just Nicoli.”

Four

Hawk stood in the middle of the grassy field and pulled another cigar from his pocket. His eyes locked with Tanya’s in a look I didn’t quite understand. He gave her a curt nod.

She smiled at me. “If you gentlemen will excuse me, I have an appointment.”

“Of course,” I said.

We watched her walk away, and it was more of a strut than a walk. I wondered if it was for my benefit, or if she always strutted like that. It didn’t really make much difference, my being over thirty and probably over the hill.

“Delightful young lady,” Hawk said. “Brilliant mind. She will be an asset to you on this assignment, Carter.”

“Yes, sir.” I was still wondering what my assignment might be. “She seems very young, though.”

“By necessity, Carter. Have you had breakfast?”

“No, sir.”

He put his hand on my arm. “Let’s go to the commissary then, and see what they can rustle up for us.”

We started walking across the grass. He had the cigar clenched between his teeth, unlit. The dark clouds above had completely blocked the sun. The bite in the air had become worse. Both of us turned up the collars of our coats as we reached the sidewalk.

At the door of the commissary, Hawk left instructions that Tanya was to be notified where we were. We picked up trays and walked through the line loading the trays with scrambled eggs, hash brown potatoes, sausage, and a pot of black coffee.

As we sat to eat, Hawk poured a cup of coffee. “Where was I?” he said suddenly.

I had to think. “Rozano Nicoli.” He started buttering toast. “While the Cosa Nostra was expanding all over America, Rozano Nicoli remained in Palermo. He prospered also, but he never made his peace with Carlo Gaddino. Things went well for a number of years, and then two weeks ago something happened.”

“Nicoli came back to America?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Carlo Gaddino was very mysteriously found in the sauna bath of his private club. There were nineteen bullet holes in his head. Of course no one heard any shots. There was a large, lavish funeral nine days ago.”

The food was good. It didn’t take me long to devour it. “Sounds like Nicoli is trying to clear a path for his return,” I said.

“Very possibly.” He held a fork toward me. “Carter, we already have eight dead agents. I don’t want you to be number nine. I’ll tell you what those eight agents gave us before they were killed.”

I sat back sipping coffee.

“As I said, Nicoli commutes between Palermo and Istanbul. And he has picked up some interesting friends. While in Istanbul he has been keeping company with a known Turkish Communist named Konya. He also has a constant companion wherever he goes, an Oriental called Tai Sheng, who is a high-ranking member of the People’s Republic in China. In fact he is one of their ace pilots and has earned the nickname, The Winged Tiger. We think he has a great deal of influence over Nicoli, and besides Acasano, whom you are now impersonating, he is Nicoli’s closest friend.”

We had finished eating. There were two lovely young ladies in the place besides us. They were in a far corner, heads together in whispered conversation. The commissary was like all the others at AXE training schools. Pea-green walls surgically clean, well-polished tile floors, small round tables with wrought-iron chairs. Girls and women selected for training all had to put in their time as waitresses, cooks, and dishwashers. It was part of the discipline.

Hawk and I leaned back sipping coffee. He pulled out yet a third cigar and stuck it between his teeth. This one he fit. I pulled out one of my gold-tipped cigarettes.

When we were smoking, I said, “Do we know anything about this Tai Sheng: his background, why he’s such a high-ranking member of the People’s Republic?”

The leathery face remained passive. “We know several things. It is believed that he organized the Chinese Communist Air Force which helped drive Chiang Kai-shek out of mainland China to Taiwan. Supposedly he speaks often with none other than Mao Tse-tung himself.”

A whistle escaped from my lips. Tai Sheng was beginning to impress me.

“After receiving Red China’s highest medal from Mao Tse-tung, Sheng helped organize factory production of fighter planes and in later years, missiles.” Hawk blew a puff of cigar smoke toward the ceiling. “Like Nicoli, he is in his early to middle fifties, and he has a great deal of ambition. We think he personally arranged the path of heroin from Istanbul to Saigon. Nicoli provided the capital and has reaped most of the benefits.”

I studied him with a frown. “With heroin selling at three dollars a vial in Saigon, Nicoli’s profit margin can’t be all that great. It must bother him to know he could get one hundred times that amount in the States.”

“Believe me,” Hawk replied, “it bothers him. But even at three dollars a vial he is making a one hundred per cent profit.”

My frown of disbelief seemed to amuse him a little. The report on heroin came back to mind as he spoke again.

“In America one ounce of heroin will bring seven thousand dollars. Most of the heroin shipments coming in here are sent from Turkey, either direct or by way of Mexico and Canada. Compared to what is paid for the stuff in Turkey, it can be sold in the U.S. at a three thousand per cent profit. Which is the main reason why dope smuggling is so lucrative to so many.”

It had all been in the report. Hawk made a minor ritual of using the ash-tray edge to push an ash off the end of his cigar. He seemed in deep thought.

“Eight agents, Carter,” he said softly, looking at the ash tray. “Their lives paid for your assignment. I’ll tell you what information was gained at that cost. We believe that La Cosa Nostra in America is now without leadership. There has been little activity from organized crime lately; everything seems silent. We further think it was Rozano Nicoli who gave the hit order on Carlo Gaddino, and that order was carried out by someone connected with the Chinese Communist Party in the U.S., under the orders of Tai Sheng. AXE also thinks that Rozano Nicoli intends to take over organized crime in the States, and has already put out feelers to find who will back him and who will oppose him. Tai Sheng would use American Chicoms from large-city Chinatowns to deal with anyone opposing Nicoli. Nicoli is short-sighted; he can only see as far as the huge profits from smuggling heroin into the U.S. He actually believes that he is using Tai Sheng and the Chicoms to help him take over in the States, as well as providing the route for heroin from Istanbul to Saigon. But what will actually happen is that Nicoli will become a Chinese Communist puppet, if he isn’t already. It is obvious that the Chicoms want to demoralize American troops in Vietnam, but to take over organized crime in the U.S., using Nicoli as a front, would be like the power in Peking taking over General Motors.”

“Then my assignment is to stop it from happening,” I said.

“Partly. You must get close to Nicoli, to stop him by killing him if necessary, and the flow of heroin from Istanbul to Saigon must cease.”

I nodded. “So why the disguise? Who is this Thomas Acasano I’m impersonating? How did he die?”

“Your impersonation of Acasano is our only chance,” Hawk said, studying the glowing end of his cigar. “Thomas Acasano was Nicoli’s trusted ally on the East Coast. He carried a lot of weight with Nicoli, which is something Tai Sheng does not like. As far as both of them are concerned, Acasano is still very much alive.”

“I see. And how did he die?”

This was what Hawk unfolded.

AXE had had agents watching everyone even vaguely connected with Nicoli ever since Gaddino was gunned down in that sauna. The agent assigned to Acasano was a good man named Al Emmet. Al intended to do more than just follow his man. He wanted a pipeline to Nicoli, and he figured Acasano was it. So he pushed a little too close.

Many things must have gone through his mind at that time. He probably went back over the last few days and tried to find out where he made his mistake. Then there was a decision to be made. Should he tell AXE headquarters he had been found out? To do so would mean he’d be yanked from the case and another agent would take over. And just when he was so damned close.

Al Emmet was good. What separated American agents from those of the Communist world was independent action. Agents like Al didn’t follow any book. Each case was individual, and he handled it as he saw it. So he didn’t tell headquarters he had been discovered. He kept tailing Acasano.

When Thomas Acasano found out he was being tailed, he immediately sent out a coded telegram to Palermo asking what should be done about it. The answer came back in one sentence. The AXE agent was to be hit.

Normally, when a man had reached the stature of Acasano, the procedure would be simple. A button man would be contacted and issued a contract. But these were not normal times. Gaddino was dead, and not even cold in his grave yet. Organized crime, temporarily at least, was without leadership. There would undoubtedly be power struggles within the families to see who would end up on top. As a result no button men could really be trusted. Gaddino himself had started as a button man from Las Vegas, and everyone in the organization knew it. There were many ambitious young men who thought they could step into leadership shoes exactly as he had.

Acasano knew that Nicoli had worked too hard, made too many plans, and was just about ready to come back to the States. No lousy AXE agent was going to blow the whole thing wide open. And since no one else could be trusted, Acasano would have to handle the hit by himself.

Al Emmet knew when the telegram had come ordering his own execution. And he knew what it had said. But his main concern was for the code. If AXE headquarters had both the telegram sent by Acasano, and the one returned by Nicoli, the code might be broken, which would be helpful in the future when messages were sent between gangland leaders.

Three nights after Acasano received the telegram from Palermo, Al drove out to Long Island. Acasano had a huge house out there, as well as a swanky apartment in New York that he maintained for his girl. So Al drove out there at night. He was going to get that telegram ordering his own execution, as well as Acasano’s copy of the one he sent.

It had been snowing that night. He parked a block from the house and walked, listening to the crunch of his shoes in the snow. He had brought some rope with a three-pronged hook on the end. With that it was easy to scale the twelve-foot-high concrete wall Acasano had built around the mansion.

As Al ran in a crouch across the big yard, he knew he was leaving footprints in the snow. They would be discovered later. It worried him all the way to the back door of the house. Then he was relieved to see that it began to snow once more. The fresh snowflakes would cover his tracks.

He got in the house and made his way to the den with a pencil flash. Finding the two telegrams was easy. Too easy. They had been in the third drawer of the desk, right there on top. It wasn’t until Al had shoved them in his overcoat pocket that he knew he had been caught.

Acasano, of course, had been expecting him. He had been waiting in the adjoining library. When Al shoved the telegrams in his pocket and started for the door, Acasano stepped through the connecting door and turned on the light.

“Find what you were looking for?” he asked.

Al smiled. “Made it easy for me, didn’t you?”

Acasano was holding a.38 Smith and Wesson. He motioned Al toward the door. “My car is in the garage, pal. You’ll do the driving.”

“Afraid of messing up the house?”

“Could be. Let’s go.”

The two men went outside and across to the heated garage where the shiny, new Lincoln Continental was parked. Acasano kept the.38 on Al and handed him the keys.

“Where to?” Al asked as the Continental warmed up. Acasano was sitting in the back seat, the.38 close to the back of the agent’s neck.

“We’ll make it a classical kind of hit, pal. Drive out along the New Jersey coast. I’ll stick the silencer on this rod so we won’t disturb the neighbors. It’ll be a bullet through the temple, some weight, and the chilly Atlantic.”

Al drove the Continental. So far Acasano hadn’t made any attempt to get the telegrams back. Maybe he wanted them to go into the Atlantic with Al.

When they had reached a dark, deserted spot along the New Jersey coast, Acasano ordered Al to pull over.

“There are some concrete blocks in the trunk,” he said. “And a roll of wire. You’ll find the key on the same ring as the ignition key.”

Al got the trunk open. Acasano was standing close to the fender, the.38 still trained on the agent. Only one thing was running through Al’s mind then. How could he get the telegrams to AXE headquarters? It was vital that AXE have that code. And Acasano couldn’t be left alive to tell Nicoli about it either. If that happened, the code would simply be changed.

As Al lifted the trunk lid, a light came on. He saw five concrete blocks and the roll of wire. He knew Acasano wouldn’t be easy. He reached inside and got one hand on a concrete block.

“The wire first, pal,” Acasano said.

In a quick movement, Al swung the block out of the trunk and toward Acasano’s head. Acasano bobbed to the side. The block glanced off his head. But he managed to squeeze off two shots with the silenced.38. The shots sounded like the air pop of a BB gun. The concrete block struck with enough force to knock Acasano off his feet.

But the shots were well placed. Al Emmet doubled over as both slugs slammed into his stomach. He grabbed the fender of the Continental for support.

Acasano had hit the snow hard. He was trying to sit up now. Al, with both hands clutching his bleeding stomach, stumbled to the gangster and fell on top of him. His hands groped along the overcoat-covered arm until he found the gun wrist.

Acasano suddenly came alive with strength. They struggled and rolled in the snow. Al was trying to get the gun away. Acasano was trying to knee the agent in his wounded stomach.

Again and again Al struck the gangster in the face and neck. But he was growing weak; there was no strength in his punches. He concentrated on the gun wrist, slamming it uselessly against the snow. Acasano was not idle. He kept pounding Al in the sides and chest, trying to get a clear blow to the stomach. And the punches were beginning to tell.

Then Al, with all the strength he had left, sank his teeth into the gun wrist. Acasano cried out in agonizing pain and the.38 dropped to the bloodstained snow bank. Al scrambled for it and got it in his hand just as Acasano kicked him in the stomach.

There had been little sound other than the panting of both men and the crunch of snow as they rolled back and forth in it. Since the hour was late and the street infrequently used, no cars came by the parked Continental.

Al Emmet was on his back, swinging the.38 around. Acasano scrambled to his feet and stumbled toward the agent, hovering above him like a huge bear. Al fired once, then again. Both slugs tore into the hood’s chest. He stood with mouth and eyes open, not believing what had just happened. Then his eyes glazed over and he fell back.

Al pushed his painful, bleeding body to his feet. He dropped the.38 in his overcoat pocket. By grabbing the hood’s arms, he managed to drag him to the back seat of the Continental. He shoved Acasano inside, then shut the trunk lid and stumbled to the driver’s seat.

He knew he was dying. The slugs were accurately placed inside him. And there had been too much blood lost. He managed to get the Continental started, and drove straight to an AXE branch office in New Jersey.

Acasano was dead before Al got there. They had to drag Al from the car where he was slumped over the wheel. Nobody would have known he was there if he hadn’t smashed into the steps to the building and slumped over the horn ring. He was immediately rushed to the nearest hospital.

Even then he wouldn’t allow them to give him a sedative or take him to the operating room. In a mumbling voice he told them to keep him alive until he could speak to Hawk. A phone call was made, and Hawk was on a special chartered jet out of Washington, D.C. When he reached the hospital he was rushed to Al Emmet’s bedside.

In gasping breaths Al said this was the first real break in the case. He told Hawk of the two telegrams and how the code had to be broken. Then he lapsed into silence.

Hawk stood and read the telegrams. Later, when the code was finally deciphered, he would learn that there was much more than access to a code in one of those telegrams. Rozano Nicoli had given definite instructions to Acasano. He was to draw up a list of those family heads who would side with Nicoli and a list of those who wouldn’t. Since this would be a very secret list, Acasano would deliver it personally in Palermo.

Hawk was standing over Al Emmet as the agent gathered strength. Then Al motioned for Hawk to bend closer.

“T-there is... a girl,” Al said in a very weak voice. “She is far too young... for Acasano, barely over nineteen. He... tried to impress her with her own apartment. Paid for by him. She... refused. Already had a boyfriend. Then... boyfriend in auto accident. Both legs broken. Acasano moved in on... girl. Showered her with candy and flowers. Took her... best places. She’s not... very bright. Easily impressed. Liked the apartment Acasano had for her. Six weeks... moved in.” Al Emmet fell silent again.

“What was her name, Emmet?” Hawk asked softly. “Give us her name.”

In a still weaker voice, Al said, “Sandee... Catron... flashy blonde. Padded bra. Lot of make-up. Keeps hair up to look older. Chews gum. Likes to...” Al Emmet died before he could finish the sentence.

Hawk and I had finished the pot of coffee. He held up his hand, and a pretty girl in green, with red hair and sparkling blue eyes, came to get us a refill.

“So what did AXE do about this Sandee Catron?” I asked. “It seems to me she would have been the first one to miss Acasano, being his girl and all.”

The cigar had gone out. It rested in the ash tray looking cold and distasteful. “We kidnapped her,” Hawk said. “Right now she’s in northern Nevada. We have her on ice in a remote cabin along the shores of Lake Tahoe.”

I smiled as the redhead brought over our fresh pot of coffee. She set the pot down, returned my smile, and moved away with a lot of hip action.

“That isn’t all we did, Carter,” Hawk went on. “Using Acasano’s name, we sent another telegram to Palermo telling Rozano Nicoli that the snooping agent had been dealt with.”

“In the code, of course.”

“Yes. We broke the code. We also asked Nicoli when he wanted Acasano to fly to Palermo with the list.”

“And?”

He shook his head. “There hasn’t been a reply yet.”

We sipped our coffee silently for a few moments. I thought I had been told just about everything. My assignment was pretty clear. Using the cover of Acasano, I would fly to Palermo and try to get next to Nicoli. Then I had to stop him. And this Tai Sheng.

“We know very little about Acasano,” Hawk said. “He has no police record; he was never in any trouble that could be proved. You are going to have to play it by ear, Carter.”

I nodded. But one thing still puzzled me. Where was Tanya going to fit in all this?

“Make no mistake, Carter,” Hawk said pointing a finger at me. “Even though Nicoli and Acasano are close, Nicoli trusts absolutely no one. The two men have not actually seen each other in almost ten years. AXE has photos of Rozano Nicoli taken ten years ago, but no photos have been taken of him recently. He keeps himself completely surrounded by bodyguards. And except for those regular flights to Istanbul with that Turkish Communist, Konya, he rarely leaves his villa. Even then he takes a private plane, a Lear jet belonging to and piloted by none other than Tai Sheng. There is a winged tiger painted on the tail, and it is always landed on a grassy field just outside Istanbul.”

“Could a woman get to Nicoli?” I asked.

Hawk gave me a meaningless smile. “Rozano Nicoli has been married to the same woman for thirty-one years. To our knowledge, he has never once been unfaithful.”

“Well, I guess that just about...” I stopped as I saw her coming through the door of the commissary toward us.

It was Tanya, and yet it wasn’t. She smiled as she approached our table. All innocence was gone. She looked brassy with flashy blond hair, a padded bra, a lot of make-up, her hair piled on top of her head to make herself look older, and she was chewing gum. The skirt and blouse were almost too tight for her.

As she stepped up to the table, I smiled at her and said, “Sandee Catron, I presume?”

Five

The next day at seven in the evening Tanya and I were climbing into a taxi in front of Kennedy International Airport in New York. I gave the driver the address of Thomas Acasano’s apartment, the one he maintained for Sandee Catron.

It was snowing, and we rode in silence, lost in our own thoughts. There was no way of knowing what Tanya was thinking. But I looked outside the cab window at falling snowflakes, and visions of a bloodstained snowbank and two men struggling for a gun came to mind.

Tanya looked back at Kennedy International as we pulled away. “Every time I come here I’ll think of how the Mafia has all the cargo tied up.”

“Not all,” I said. “There’s no telling how much they actually control.”

I looked at her, with her thick pancake make-up and false eyelashes. The eyelids were a light blue, and she was getting very good at popping that gum.

The flight from Flagstaff had been uneventful. We traveled as Thomas Acasano and Sandee Catron. And we watched a spy movie featuring Dean Martin.

I had a phony list AXE had researched and made up for me to deliver to Rozano Nicoli. It was probably very close to what the real Acasano might have delivered. Our instructions were simple. We were to wait in Acasano’s apartment for a reply to Hawk’s telegram.

The windshield wipers clicked noisily as the driver threaded the cab through New York traffic. The apartment was over on East Fifty-eighth Street. Our cab’s headlights didn’t reveal much, just countless flakes floating down in front.

I snuggled inside my overcoat and felt Tanya, or Sandee as I would now call her, pressing against me.

She snapped gum at me and smiled. “Cold,” she whispered. “Colder than a well-digger’s lunchbox in the Klondike.”

“You’re really throwing yourself into this, aren’t you?”

“listen, Buster,” she said in a tough-girlish voice. “I spent fifteen hours reading and watching films about that broad. I know her as well as I know myself. Hell, I am her.” She snapped the gum some more to prove it.

The cabbie pulled over to the curb in front of a new apartment building. I paid off the driver and followed Sandee out into the snow. She stood shivering while I got our luggage from the trunk. Then we crunched through snow to an iron-gated archway.

Inside consisted of a patio with three stories of wrought-iron balconies. There were white wrought-iron tables and chairs scattered around us, all piled with snow.

“Which apartment is it?” Sandee asked.

I checked the key. Since Acasano had been in AXe’s hands when he died, we had access to everything he had on him. “Bee, one-oh-five,” I answered.

The apartments were arranged in four buildings, each one with a patio. Sandee and I entered the door to building B. The main floor doors were lined on each side of a hallway. There didn’t seem to be much light.

We walked and checked the door numbers. They went from 1 to 99.

“Second floor,” I said.

We took the elevator at the end of the hall. When we stepped out at the second floor, it looked dimmer than downstairs. The carpeting was so thick it felt as if we were in a hotel or a theater lounge.

“Here it is,” Tanya, or Sandee, said.

I moved in front of the door beside her. “What am I going to call you when we’re alone? Sandee, or Tanya?”

“Call me for supper, you creep. I’m starving.”

I got the key in the lock with several clicks. “Wish there was more light,” I mumbled.

“Heat, sir,” she said. “I need heat.” She shivered to prove it.

The latch clicked. I turned the doorknob and pushed the door open. Immediately I had the feeling something was wrong. There was a smell, an unusual scent that resembled incense. I’d know for sure once there was a little light.

Reaching around the door jam, my hand fumbled along the wall for a light switch. Strong fingers wrapped tightly around my wrist. I felt myself being jerked inside the apartment.

“Nick!” Tanya cried.

The darkness was total. I stumbled forward surprised at the strength of the hand around my wrist. The normal reaction of anyone who is tugged at is to pull back against the force. To someone trained in karate, the opposite is true. If someone grabs and pulls, they expect some kind of resistance, even if token. What they don’t expect is for you to go rushing headlong into them.

Which is what I did. Once I was inside the apartment, I rushed into whoever was pulling me. It was a man, and he was going down.

My feet left the floor; they went up toward the ceiling, then came around over me. I landed flat on my back against a chair.

“Hyaa!” a voice shouted. It came from across the room, and a blow followed it straight to my stomach.

I doubled over, then rolled. Tanya clicked on the light. The apartment was a shambles, furniture overturned, lamps broken, drawers pulled out. One ceiling light had come on above me.

There were two of them, both Oriental. As I pushed myself against the wall and up to my feet, one of them passed quickly in front of me. He gave out a short grunt and his arm swung in an upward arc, struck the globe of the ceiling light, and shattered it to pieces.

Darkness flooded the apartment and because Tanya had left the door open, some dim light filtered in from the hallway. Before the light had shattered, I saw the second man pull out a knife.

I moved along the wall to the corner and snapped Hugo down its sheath into my waiting hand.

“Mr. Acasano?” a voice said. “There is no need for this violence. Perhaps we can talk.” The voice was coming from my left.

He was trying to draw conversation from me to pinpoint my position. It didn’t matter that I knew where he was, he had help. I didn’t know if I had any.

“You are not Mr. Acasano, are you?” the voice asked. “The lady called you Nick. She... Ahh!” The blow had landed against his side with a hollow thud.

I did have help.

The voice didn’t worry me. As long as he was talking, he was giving me his position. It was the other one. He worried me.

He had also heard Tanya call me Nick and knew I wasn’t Acasano. I couldn’t let him leave the apartment alive either.

My eyes were used to the dimness now. He came along the wall in a crouch, moving fast, the dagger out in front of him. That sharp blade was aimed straight for my throat.

I jumped out of the corner swinging Hugo in a side arc. There was a “ting” sound as both blades flicked off each other. In one jump I was away from the wall and had turned back. Hugo was ready.

“Behind you!” Tanya shouted.

“Hyaa!” another voice cried.

The blow would have been one of those where the fingertips are curled and the knuckles slam with all the strength the attacker has. It was aimed for my back, and it would have snapped my spine.

But I dropped to my knees as soon as Tanya shouted her warning. The blow glanced off my left ear, and by that time I was reaching.

He was off balance, coming forward. Both my hands were behind my head, grabbing. The other saw an advantage and stepped forward with the dagger back ready to lunge.

I caught him by the hair, which was good enough, and pushed to my feet as I pulled him down over my head. The smell of his cologne or after-shave was very strong for an instant.

He went high over me. The one with the dagger saw him coming and opened his mouth. Both men collided with a grunt and went smashing back against the wall. It was a miracle one of them wasn’t cut with that dagger.

For a few seconds they were a tangle of arms and legs. I used the time to step in closer, Hugo by my waist, aimed straight ahead.

The one with the dagger rolled away from the wall and, in one liquid motion, swung up to his feet. He was coming high, with the dagger swinging down.

It wasn’t difficult then. I sidestepped to the right, pivoted, dipped, and came up with Hugo. The stiletto pushed into him just under the rib cage, the blade went through the left lung and pricked the heart. Almost immediately I yanked the blade out and jumped to my left.

The strength was out of his arm before the dagger came completely down. His free hand clutched at his chest. It had only taken split seconds, but in that time I saw the man I had killed. Straight black hair, half hanging over his face. Suit, well cut and tailored. Face broad and flat, in the late twenties.

He stumbled back, the dagger falling noiselessly to the carpet. Both hands clutched at his chest. When he sank to his knees his eyes were looking straight through me. The front of his shirt was scarlet with blood. He fell face forward.

That left the other one outnumbered, and he knew it. He pushed me and started for the door.

“Tanya!” I shouted, and knew I had made the same mistake she had earlier.

She was right there. She moved like lace in a wind, across the room, arm back. Then the arm shot forward and connected against the man’s neck. His feet went out to the side as he slipped and went down.

Then Tanya was between him and the door, and I was moving in. I could see him shake his head. In a split second he took in the situation, Tanya blocking his escape, me coming in fast from his right. He was on hands and knees.

Too late I saw the bulge in his cheek, and I knew what it meant. A tooth cap had been lifted, a cyanide capsule released.

I reached him on my knees. I grabbed his throat and tried to pry his mouth open. Damn him! There were questions I wanted to ask. Who sent them? Why did they choose Acasano’s apartment? Where were they from?

One small gagging sound, a jerk of his body, and he died with my hand still on his throat. His body seemed frail and small-boned.

Tanya stepped up on my left. “I’m sorry, Nick. I should have put him out.”

“Not Nick,” I said softly. “Thomas, or Tom. And you’re Sandee, no matter what.”

“All right, Tom.”

I patted the man’s pockets, knowing I would find nothing. No laundry marks on the suit coat. Tailored in Hong Kong. English style. No tailor’s name and absolutely no identification. There was nothing on the other man either.

“Should we call the police?” Tanya asked while I stood in the middle of the shambles with my hands on my hips.

I gave her a stem look. “We should not. Get some blankets or sheets out of the bedroom. We have to get rid of the bodies.”

She stood hesitating, looking innocent and delicate through the make-up and tight, teasing clothes. I knew what was running through her mind. Even with all the training she had, ever since she could remember, when something happened you called in the authority. You let the law handle things.

I smiled at her. “This is something we play by ear, Sandee. Call it the unexpected, the unplanned. Our assignment hasn’t changed at all. We are still to wait for that telegram.” I nodded at the bodies. “These two were after something from Acasano. By the look of the place, they were in a hurry to find it. Somebody knows they’re here, and will be waiting for them. All right, they’re dead. Just as they would be dead if Acasano had found them. We’re still safe. We’ll get rid of these bodies and act as if these two had never been here.”

She looked at them, then at me. “I’ll get the blankets,” she said.

With her help I wrapped the pair individually in blankets. The stiletto hadn’t left much blood. She cleaned it up while I toted the bodies, one at a time, outside in the snow.

Behind the apartments, I had found a large trash can, the kind garbage trucks just hook onto, Dempsey Dumpsters, or something like that. There were four of them next to an alley. Two were half filled with trash, the other two were almost empty.

I toted the bodies one at a time, slinging them over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes, and carried them down the rear exitway concrete stairs. Before dumping them in the big trash cans, I removed some of the trash, and when both bodies were in, scattered newspapers, beer cans and plastic cartons over them.

Then Tanya and I cleaned the place up. There was no way of telling how long we’d have to wait, a day, a week, even a month. We straightened furniture and put papers back where they belonged. She had already cleaned up the small pool of blood on the carpet.

“Hungry?” she asked when the place was fairly presentable.

We were standing in the kitchen where we had found spare bulbs to put in the broken lamps. I nodded, and watched as she went on a food hunt through the kitchen cupboards.

The skirt pulled even tighter each time she knelt or bent over. The bleached hair looked good, and since the real Sandee Catron also had green eyes, there had been no need to give Tanya colored contact lenses.

I could definitely feel her presence there in the small confines of the kitchen. It was a physical awareness of her. She may have been only nineteen, but she was a fully developed, ripe woman.

She spun around with a can of something in her hand. “Aha!” she exclaimed. “Look.” It was a family-size can of spaghetti. “Now, sir, you shall see the magical things I can do with one small can. You see? Nothing up my sleeves, no hidden wands or magic potions. Before your very eyes, I shall transform this humble can of goodies into a gastronomical delight.”

“I can hardly wait.”

The green eyes taunted while the rest of her teased. “Out. I am now going to start rattling pots and pans.”

There were still things to do while she messed around in the kitchen. I started with the bedroom, going through drawers and patting clothes in the closet.

The apartment was a one-bedroom affair, furnished in assembly-fine taste. It gave you the impression that every apartment in the building was laid out exactly the same and with the same kind of furniture, arranged the same way. There was a king-size bed; Acasano was a big man, like me. And there was a vanity with a mirror, complete with white wrought-iron, pink-padded chair. Sandee had loads of cosmetics to play with, and they were stretched out on the top of the vanity.

In the closet were skirts, blouses, and dresses, low-cut in the front and in the back. On the top shelf was a row of shoeboxes.

I noticed that Acasano had few clothes here: a couple of suits, one drawer in the dresser devoted to his things containing a fresh shirt, three sets of underwear, three pairs of socks, and some handkerchiefs.

What Acasano did was universal. You begin by spending the night a time or two. The weather is wicked. You’re tired and don’t want to drive home. Whatever. This stretches to three and four nights in a row. You should really have some shaving gear so you won’t get five o’clock shadow at eight in the morning. Then you’re getting to feel a little seedy putting on the same underwear after a shower that you had on before, so — fresh underwear. A spot on the suit during dinner? Bring over a spare, just in case. You don’t want to lounge around wearing a suit all the time. Some casual clothes are inserted. By that time you are spending every night there and not seeing much of your own place.

“Come and get it before I send it to Red China,” Tanya hollered.

I had just finished going through the shoeboxes. Three of the boxes did not contain shoes. Two of them held girlish junk, magazine cutouts of movie stars, buttons, pins, dress patterns, pieces of cloth. The third contained two packets of letters.

“Hey, I am not slaving in the kitchen because I get turned on watching gas flames.” Tanya was standing in the doorway to the bedroom. There was an apron tied around her waist.

I showed her the letters. Her eyebrows raised in interest. “After we eat,” I said. “We’ll go through these and find out what kind of girl Sandee Catron really is.”

She took my hand and led me to the dining room. Somewhere she had found bread and a bottle of pink Chablis.

All the lights were out. Two candles glimmered on the table. Tanya disappeared into the kitchen, then returned minus the apron, hair brushed, wearing fresh lipstick, and toting a steaming dish.

It was good. It didn’t taste of the can at all; in fact she spiced it up enough to make it taste like the restaurant stuff. When she picked up her wine glass she held it toward me.

“To the success of our mission,” she said.

We touched glasses. “And to tonight,” I added, which brought a frown from her. She didn’t know it, but I had made up my mind. I was going to have her. Tonight.

When we were finished, I helped her clear the dishes from the table. We stacked them on the sink in the kitchen. With all the fights out and only the candles burning we could barely see each other.

We were close, standing directly in front of the sink. She reached in front of me and across to get the apron. My hands circled her waist and twisted her around so she was facing me. Then I pulled her against me.

“Nick!” she gasped. “I...”

“Hush.” I bent slightly and my mouth found hers.

At first her lips were stiff and unyielding. Her hands pressed lightly against my chest. It wasn’t until I let my arms slide below the small of her back and pulled her tighter against me that her lips relaxed. I let my tongue dart in and out, then moved it lightly back and forth across the roof of her mouth. Her hands moved up to my shoulders, then around my neck. When I moved my tongue between her lips slowly, back and forth, she pushed away from me.

She stood back panting. “I... I think we should...”

“Should what, Tanya?”

She cleared her throat and swallowed. Her green eyes were blinking rapidly. “S-something. We should...”

I smiled at her. “You have a low boiling point,” I said softly. “I could feel the way your body was relaxing. And you were getting warm. Very warm.”

“No. It was just that... I mean...”

“You mean it wasn’t like before, when you were just testing your little panty gun and could concentrate on something else.”

“Yes, I mean, no. You just sort of... took me by surprise.”

I was holding her at arm’s length. “What are we going to do about it?” I asked.

She swallowed again. “Nothing,” she said, but there was no conviction in it. “Packet. Letters.” Her face lit up. “We’re going to look at those letters of Sandee’s.”

I stepped away from her, smiling. “Whatever you say. They’re in the bedroom.”

“Oh. Well, maybe...”

But by that time I had her hand and was leading her through the living room, down the hallway to the bedroom. When we were standing by the foot of the king-size bed, she looked up at me. Her green eyes were curious.

I smiled at her, then nodded toward the bed. “The letters are in that shoebox.”

She spun toward the box on the bed. “Oh.” Then she went around to the side of the bed and sat on the edge. She opened the box and pulled out one packet of letters. They were held together by a pair of rubber bands. With slightly shaking fingers she pulled the first letter out of the envelope and began to read it. She pretended not to notice when I moved to sit beside her and pulled out another packet of letters.

Some of those letters were pretty torrid. A lot of them were from overseas, but mostly they were written by someone named Mike, who, I guessed, had been her boyfriend before Acasano entered the scene.

Twice I caught Tanya blushing as she read. The majority of letters were from Mike. But evidently Sandee had a little trouble being faithful to Mike. From the tone of some of the other letters, she was doing a lot of sleeping around, even after Acasano set her up in this apartment.

And then I found a photo. “Let me see,” Tanya said when she saw it fall out of the letter I was holding.

It was a poor Polaroid showing Sandee coupled with a young man. From the way the man’s arm went out of range, it was obvious he had taken the photo after moving between Sandee’s legs. While he concentrated on her small protruding breasts, she was smiling at the camera.

“Wow!” Tanya said. “I wonder if Mike knew about the others?” She turned the photo over. “There’s writing on the back. Dear Sandee, I wish we could stay in this position all the time. You’re the best I ever had. Mike. So that’s what Mike looks like.” She raised her eyebrows. “Hmmm. Not bad.”

“From the tone of the note, Sandee isn’t bad either,” I said. I took the photo and studied the face of the young man in it.

The quality was poor, but there were enough features to tell what he looked like. He was in his early twenties, with blond hair, high cheekbones, sensuous mouth, no hair on his chest but lots of muscle. He was a good-looking kid. I was struck by the remarkable resemblance Tanya had to the real Sandee. She could have passed for a twin.

I didn’t realize it but Tanya had been staring at me while I looked at the photo. When our eyes met I read something there. She had no more of that embarrassed coyness she had shown in the kitchen.

“Do you think that the real Sandee is that good? As good as Mike says?”

“I wouldn’t know, Tanya.”

I pulled her close to me and pushed her gently down on the bed. My band lightly cupped her breast while I looked at her with my face inches from hers.

“I want you, Nick,” she whispered.

I undressed her slowly, enjoying and savoring each part of her I uncovered. My lips moved softly from the hollow of her throat along the upsweep of her breasts to the plum-colored nipples. I lingered there, letting the tip of my tongue move lightly around each hardened nipple. She was making the sounds of readiness a woman makes when she gives herself completely to emotion.

The sounds increased when my lips moved over the mound of her rib cage and paused along the flatness of her stomach. Her skin was blemish-free and smooth. She was beginning to make movements to match the sounds.

And then I stopped. I pushed myself to the edge of the bed and stood looking down at her. Her body was still moving, only now she knew I was looking at her. There was no more self-conscious embarrassment. Like most women, once she was naked with a man’s eyes watching her, she became shameless and open.

I watched her while I undressed. At her insistence I turned out the light. Then I waited until the total darkness had passed and the room became filled with shapes of things. That was when I joined her.

The first time is always clumsy. The act of love never begins smoothly. There are two fresh and different people unknown to each other. Arms get entwined. Noses get in the way. Smoothness comes with practice.

She was very young and, by her own admission, didn’t have much experience. I led her gently, letting my lips continue the course they had begun. There was a newness about her I hadn’t felt in a long time.

At first she was too eager, overwilling to please. There was so much she wanted to do for me, and she wanted to do it all at once. Only after I convinced her that there would be time, to take it slow, did she relax. She had been apprehensive and unsure of her own ability. I told her in whispers that there would be other times. Everything she had ever thought about would be done. There was much time. And this first one was for her.

Only when she begged and pleaded did I enter her. I felt her close around me with a sigh. She came alive then, moving with an ancient wisdom that was part learned and part instinct.

We were very slow. There was nothing wild or bouncing or screaming. It was a blending of two bodies, kissing, touching, exploring, while we moved a little at a time, together, then apart. And with each movement I tried to make it different for her, never the same.

When it happened for her the first time, it was a stiffening of her limbs, a clutching of my hair, eyes closed, lips slightly parted. And a long, low, lovely groan, ending in a tiny, little-girl whimper.

Then she couldn’t kiss me enough. Her lips moved over my eyes, my cheeks, my mouth, then my own lips. She held onto me tightly as if afraid I would move away.

I held her close and remained quiet for awhile. When she fell back against the pillow, I started moving again. She tossed her head back and forth on the pillow.

Her head stopped. Without opening her eyes she let her hands move to each side of my face. “I... couldn’t... not again...” she sighed.

“Yes,” I said softly. “You can. Let me show you.”

As I started moving again, I felt her body come alive under me. The room was no longer dark. I could see her clearly.

And the second time she gave out little cries and squeals. Her heels dug deep in the mattress. Fingernails raked across my side and back.

The third time we had both totally committed ourselves to the act. When it happened to both of us it was a grinding, mashing, clutching, grabbing at each other, neither of us able to hold enough of the other. The sounds were low groans, and neither of us was aware of noise, the bed, anything except the other, and the draining, blinding pleasure we were feeling.

Six

I told myself I would just rest for a few minutes. But when I opened my eyes I found the first hint of daylight creeping into the room. I was on my back. Tanya’s bleached hair was resting in the hollow of my shoulder.

I wondered why it was that in the morning a woman’s body is always so very warm, and so much smoother than it had been the night before.

But something had awakened me. Something had stirred my subconscious to bring me aware of what was around me. I lifted my left arm enough to look at my watch. A little after five.

Then the sound came again. A steady pounding on the front door, muffled by air space through the living room and hallway. It was not even a knock or a quick rapping. It was slow and irregularly spaced like a loud, dying heartbeat. I stirred, which woke Tanya.

She raised her head without opening her eyes. “Nick?” she murmured. “What is it?”

“Somebody is pounding at our door.”

Her head went back to my shoulder. “They’ll go away,” she said sleepily.

I shook her shoulder. “Sandee,” I whispered loudly. “This is your place, and I want to know who it is.”

She licked her lips without opening her eyes. “They’ll go away,” she mumbled. “Don’t want to know.”

“I want to know. It might be some more like our two friends last night.”

Her green eyes popped open. She raised up just as the pounding came again. There was no sleep in those eyes now.

“Nick,” she said out loud. “Somebody is pounding on the front door.”

I nodded, smiling at her. “Why don’t you see who it is.”

She threw back the covers, and for a few moments I enjoyed the movements of her nakedness as she fished through her suitcase. She found a little powder-blue shorty negligee complete with matching panties.

Her fingers combed through her hair as she made last-minute adjustments to the nightie. It was sheer enough to make out the color of her nipples. With a quick smile at me, she went out of the bedroom and along the hallway to the front door.

I moved quickly out of bed, knelt, and opened my own suitcase. There was a black quilted robe, which I put on. Then I fished under my pants lying on the floor next to the bed until I felt the cold steel of Wilhelmina, my Luger.

With the gun in my hand I moved to the open doorway of the bedroom. I could see down the hall and across the living room to the front door. Tanya waited at the door watching me. I closed the door, leaving just a crack to look out of. Then I nodded at her.

“Who is it?” she asked timidly.

The grumbling from the other side of the front door was masculine but I couldn’t make out the words. Then the pounding started again.

Before Tanya unlatched the door, I walked to the bedside table and snatched up my cigarettes and lighter. I lit one while watching her click the latch.

It was Mike, the blond boyfriend from the photo. And he was drunk. He came lumbering in as Tanya fell back, then stood swaying back and forth. He put most of his weight on a cane; the two broken legs must not have completely healed yet.

Tanya was sharp. “Mike!” she said in mock surprise. “What are you doing here?”

“Where issa sombitch?” he bellowed. “Had a hell of a time findin’ this place. Where is he, Sandee?”

She was backing slightly, making sure she didn’t get between me and the boyfriend. I lit one of my gold-tipped cigarettes and blew smoke at the ceiling.

In broad daylight, had Mike been sober, he might have easily seen that he was not talking to Sandee. But the hour was still early; the sun wasn’t up yet, and Tanya played her role well.

“Mike, you’re drunk,” she said. “If you wake him up, he’ll do more than just break your legs.”

“Aha!” Mike shouted. “Knew that bastard caused the accident. Get your clothes. We’re gettin’ out of here.”

Tanya had backed to the hall. “No, Mike. I’m staying. I like it here.”

He stood swaying, staring at her. “You... mean you’d rather stay with that old bastard?”

“He does things for me that you never could.”

“Come back to me, Sandee.”

“No. I told you, I like it here.”

His lips quivered. “Nothin’ is any good any more. It’s not the same without you. Please... come back,” he begged.

“I think you’d better leave,” she said.

I noticed he had a ruggedly handsome face in person. The blond hair was cut in such a way to make him look like a little boy, a fact I’m sure he realized. If Tanya couldn’t get rid of him, I’d have to. She was backing down the hallway now.

“Sandee,” he cried. “The bastard is no good for you. You’re so young you don’t understand. What he did to me, breaking my legs, was nothin’. He’s a criminal. He has people killed, don’t you see. He’s part of the Mafia.”

“I don’t believe you.” I was more and more impressed by Tanya’s quick mind.

“It’s true, I checked. Sandee, has he got something on you? Is he making you stay here?”

She shook her head. “No. I told you twice, I’m here because I want to be.”

“I don’t believe you.” He reached for her. “Baby, I need you real bad.”

Tanya danced away. She was close to the bedroom door now. “Mike,” she said in a calm voice. “I asked you nicely to leave.”

Then he stopped. He stood staring at her, his knuckles growing white as he gripped the cane. “He made you like this,” he cried. “That Acasano did it. I’ll kill the bastard!”

That was when I opened the bedroom door and stepped into the hall. I shoved the snout of the Luger to within inches of his nose. In as tough a voice as I could muster, I said, “Now’s your chance, punk. What is it you wanted to do?”

His bloodshot brown eyes blinked at me. He fell back three steps toward the living room and wet his lips with his tongue. “I...” he mumbled. “You’re pretty tough with that gun. I... wonder how tough you’d be without it.”

“You aren’t going to find out, punk, because you’re leaving.”

He stood tall. “I’m not going until Sandee tells me to.”

Tanya was leaning against the wall watching us. Her nipples pushed against the thin material of the nightie. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you since you got here, Mike. I want you to leave.”

His good-looking boyish face wrinkled in pain as he looked at her. “Do you mean that? You prefer this... old... man to me?”

I stepped over to Tanya. Reaching out with my free hand I lightly patted the underside of her left breast. She smiled.

“What do you think of that?” I said. Then I stepped toward him threateningly. “Now you listen to me, punk, and you listen good. Sandee is my broad now, see? You get the hell out of here and you stay away. I see your ugly face around again I’ll pump it so full of lead you’ll look like a diving belt.” To add a little flavor to my threat I backhanded him with my free hand across the face.

The slap sounded loud in the quiet morning air. He spun half around and grabbed one of the living-room chairs to keep from going down. The cane dropped to the floor.

Tanya ran over to him. She picked up his cane and handed it to him. Then she turned to me. “You didn’t have to hit him so hard. You could have just told him.”

I stood silent with Wilhelmina hanging loosely in my hand, aimed at the floor. “I want him out of here,” I said softly.

Mike hobbled toward the door. When Tanya opened it for him, he looked steadily at her. “And you’re here because you want to be?”

She nodded. He stepped into the hallway outside, then turned back to me.

I lifted the Luger. “Something else you wanted, punk?”

“Yeah. I was wondering how interested the police would be in how I got my legs broke.”

“Any time you grow weary of life, ask them.”

Tanya shut the door. For a few seconds she gripped the knob and rested her head against the door. Then she turned around to face me. She gave out a long sigh. “What do you think?”

I shrugged. “I think he bought it. If anyone were to ask him, I think he would say he saw Sandee and Acasano.”

She turned away from the door and went in the kitchen. I heard her pulling a glass from the cupboard and filling it with water. I dropped Wilhelmina in my robe pocket and went to stand in the doorway.

She was leaning against the sink with her back to me. “I think something is happening, Nick.”

“What?”

“I feel rotten about what we did to Mike.” She turned to face me. “Acasano was the lowest type of creature I ever heard of. And, Nick, I’m starting to think you’re him.”

I smiled at her. “I must be pretty good at my job, then.”

She ran across the kitchen and wrapped her arms around my waist. “I don’t ever want to hate you, Nick. Not ever.”

The telegram came that afternoon.

Seven

My ears started popping as the feeder flight from Rome dropped toward the airport in Palermo, Sicily. Below stretched a patchwork of vineyards looking like a quilted blanket stretching toward the buildings of Palermo.

Tanya, sitting next to me, squeezed my hand. We both knew this was it. We had convinced Mike, in early morning light, when he was drunk, but this was the supreme test. There would definitely not be any more Nick and Tanya. One slip here and we would be agents nine and ten added to the list.

The instructions in the telegram had been direct and to the point. I was to book myself on the first available flight from Kennedy International direct to Rome. From there I would catch a feeder flight to Palermo. A hotel limousine would be waiting to take me straight to the Corini Hotel, where I would check in, then wait to be contacted.

No one in Palermo had seen Acasano in ten years. That fact was working for me. Sandee’s being with me was no problem either. She was my woman. From my research I had learned that these men often took their women with them on business trips.

The DC-10 eased down over the strip, leveled off, then there was a jerk as the wheels touched and screeched. Tanya and I unfastened our safety belts.

She was wearing a light business suit, which would have been too flashy for Tanya but which seemed right for Sandee. The blouse under the short jacket had the top three buttons unfastened revealing a nice amount of cleavage. Her skirt was one size too small, and short enough to please every male pair of eyes on the plane. She had a look of youthful petulance on her face. Ripe, full lips overpainted and frosty; far too much blue eye make-up; gum-popping jaws working to excess; the illusion was that of cheapness, and ignorance of style.

An overdeveloped Lolita, a very young BB, Tanya had the talent to look both.

She leaned against my shoulder, squeezing my hand.

The plane taxied to the terminal, and we waited while the steps were hand-pushed to the door. Looking out the window, I noticed several taxis waiting, as well as four Fiat microbuses with the names of hotels painted on the sides.

My eyes swept from the vehicles to the faces of the waiting crowd. Each face was studied carefully. No reason for it, I suppose. But in my years working as an agent for AXE I had made many enemies. It had become my habit to check individual faces in any crowd. You never knew where an assassin’s bullet might come from. But this crowd was only anxious to greet those stepping from the plane.

With my hand on Tanya’s elbow, I moved slowly down the aisle. The pretty, smiling stewardess hoped we enjoyed our flight, and that we’d have a good time in Palermo. Tanya and I stepped out into bright sunlight and warmth. At the bottom of the steps taxi and bus drivers hawked for our patronage.

Plane passengers moved across the open space from the plane to the wire fence, ignoring the cries of the drivers. There were embraces and kisses as relatives and loved ones were greeted.

One of the microbuses had had “Corini Hotel” painted on its side. Still holding Tanya’s elbow, I shouldered through the dark-faced hustlers to the bus. Several of the men followed, each one telling me they had the best taxi in all of Sicily. But when we reached the bus, all the men walked back except one.

He stepped up to us, never letting his dark eyes leave the exact spot where Tanya’s nipples would be. “You wish transportation to the Corini Hotel, signor?”

“Si,” I said curtly. “If you think you can tear your eyes away from my woman long enough to put them on the road.”

He nodded with embarrassment and looked away. “You have baggage checks, signor?”

I handed them to him and watched him trot off toward the terminal. We had already cleared customs when we landed in Rome.

“I think he’s cute,” Tanya said, watching him.

“I’m sure you do. And I’m sure he thinks you’re more than just cute.”

He returned ten minutes later with our luggage, and we all climbed in the Fiat bus. Our driver was as wild and horn-honking as the rest. Tanya and I didn’t have much opportunity to see any sights; it took all we had just to hang on. Only in one other place besides Rome have I seen wilder maniacs on the road: Mexico City.

At last we screeched to a sudden halt in front of an ancient, gingerbread-lined, decaying structure which called itself, according to the lighted sign over the entrance, the Corini Hotel. Our boy brought our bags inside and dropped them not too gently in front of the desk.

“You have reservations in adjoining rooms for Thomas Acasano and Sandee Catron?” I asked the desk clerk.

He checked the book through bifocals. “Ah, si.” Then he pounded his hand on a bell, setting up one hell of a racket. In Italian he told the bellboy to run our bags up to rooms four nineteen and twenty.

As I turned away from the desk I felt someone tapping my shoulder. I turned to see an Oriental taking three steps back and holding a camera. His head ducked behind the camera and immediately I was blinded by a bright, popping flashbulb. Too late I brought my hand up to my face.

As the man turned to leave, I stepped up to him and grabbed his arm. “I’d like to buy that picture, friend.”

“No speak American. No understand!” He tried to pull away.

“Let me see your camera.” I grabbed for it.

He stumbled away from me. “No!” he shrieked. “No speak American. No understand.”

I wanted to know how the hell he knew I was American. And why he wanted my picture. There were several people in the lobby of the hotel. Each and every one of them were watching the scene with interest. I didn’t need all this attention. Tanya stood by the desk, but instead of watching me, she was watching the faces in the crowd.

“You let me go!” the man shouted. For someone who didn’t understand American he was muddling through in fine fashion.

“I want to see your camera, that’s all.” There was a smile on my face but I was straining to keep it there. The crowd began moving toward us. It hadn’t become hostile yet. There were maybe twelve men in it.

The man jerked his arm free. “I go. You leave alone.”

I started toward him, but he turned and ran across the lobby and out the front door. The crowd stood looking at me with a mild kind of curiosity. I turned my back on them, took Tanya’s arm, and headed for the open-cage elevator.

“What did you make of it, N-Tom?” Tanya asked as we rode up toward the floor where our rooms were.

“I wish I knew. Somebody wants my picture. And now it looks like they have it.” I shrugged. “Maybe Nicoli wants to make sure the man checking in the hotel is really Thomas Acasano.”

Our bus driver had followed, helping the bellboy with the luggage. I tipped them both well when we were in my room, and locked the door behind them.

The room had a high ceiling and four windows looking out onto the azure-blue harbor. There was a brass-framed bed with a canopy, one chest of drawers, two overstuffed chairs and a writing table with four straight-back chairs. There was a musty, hot smell, so I opened the window. Then I was able to catch a scent of the sea. Fishing boats looked white against the deep blue of the harbor. Beyond the anchored and docked boats I could see the top of a lighthouse. Jetties lined the canals going in and out of the harbor.

The streets below were narrow, zigzagging through canyons of pressed-together buildings looking like stacked egg-cartons.

A man on a Lambretta passed below, a pencil-thin tail of smoke flowing out behind him. He had a yellow sweater, but he wasn’t wearing it; it was on his back like a cape, with the sleeves tied around his neck. I watched him move swiftly along the cobbled streets, the sun glimmering off his bright red scooter. Along both sides of the street were Fiats, the six hundreds, mostly scarlet.

The door connecting my room with Tanya’s opened and she came through minus the suit jacket. “Isn’t it beautiful?” she said with a large smile.

She crossed to the window where I was standing and looked out. Her hand reached for mine and gathered it to her breast. Then she looked up at me.

“Make love to me.”

I reached for her and pulled her close to me. She came eagerly, willingly. It was she who pulled us toward the bed, and she who fumbled with me to get my clothes off. She wore nothing under the skirt or blouse. And it didn’t take long for us to be stretched on our sides, naked, holding each other.

I kissed her upturned nose, then each eye, then her mouth. There was warmth to her body, and smoothness. I explored every inch of her, first with my hands, then with my mouth.

I could feel her lips on me, exploring hesitant. Each time she tried something she paused as though unsure.

“It’s all right,” I whispered. “There aren’t any rules. Everything is good. Let yourself go. Do whatever you have heard or dreamed or thought and never had a chance to try.”

She was making groaning sounds. I moved back up to her throat then raised myself to look at her in the sunlight.

She was thin-boned and fragile to hold. Her breasts were mounds of softness with hardened nipples pointing straight up. She curved down then to a flat stomach and a very narrow waist. I knew I could get both hands around that waist and touch thumb and middle finger. Then there was the round flare of hips, and the buttocks that entertained so many male pairs of eyes with their movement. The legs were well shaped and joined at the small pelt of chestnut velvet. It was a pleasure-giving body filled with eagerness and youth.

Her eyes had been searching my face while I looked her over. “Take it,” she said in a hoarse whisper. “Take it and enjoy it.”

I did. I moved my mouth down to hers and let my tongue begin to match my body movements. In one motion I was over her, and then I entered her. The groaning eased to a sigh with barely a sound escaping her throat.

As I moved against her I let my tongue move as far as possible along her tongue. Then I moved away and pulled my tongue back. It was actually two acts of love, two penetrations. And she showed me how she enjoyed it with the movements of her body.

It happened suddenly for her, and her body exploded with the happening. She clawed at me and writhed under me and made crying, whimpering sounds.

There was no way I could hold back. I was a balloon filled with water and rolling across a long flat desert. A large spike was ahead sticking out of a weatherbeaten board. I felt myself pulling and clutching and bouncing until at last I struck the spike, and all the liquid water rushed out of me.

It happened again the same way.

And then we lay on our backs, naked, while the sun warmed us as it washed over the bed. With eyes half closed I watched the breeze stir the lace curtain, bringing with it the smells of the sea, and of fresh grapes, and of fish, and of wine.

I moved enough to get my cigarettes and light one. Tanya snuggled close to me, searching for, then finding, the hollow of my shoulder for her head.

“It’s good,” I said. “And so are you.”

That made her snuggle closer still. After a while she said, “You’re thinking about the assignment, aren’t you?”

“Too many unanswered questions,” I said. “Why all the Orientals? There were the two in the apartment, then that one downstairs in the lobby. What was he doing taking my picture? Who was he taking it for? And why?”

Tanya moved away from my shoulder to a sitting position. She turned to look at me seriously. “Do you have any idea how they will contact us?”

I shook my head. “But I think we’d better be on our toes from now on. No slip-ups, nothing that even comes close. I have a feeling about this assignment, one that I don’t like.”

She kissed the tip of my nose. “Feed me, my beautiful man. Your woman is hungry. I’ll go get dressed.”

As she pushed off the edge of the bed, we heard a loud ring. The phone was on the night stand next to the bed. Tanya paused.

With my cigarette still dangling from the corner of my mouth I picked up the receiver. “Yeah, Acasano here.”

“Signor Acasano,” the desk clerk said. “I have been told that a car is here waiting for you. A man is in the lobby. Can I tell him when you will be down.”

“Who sent the car?” I asked.

His hand went over the mouthpiece. When he came back on his voice had jumped about ten points in respect. “The car comes from Mr. Rozano Nicoli, signor.”

“I’ll be down in fifteen minutes.”

“Grazie.” He hung up.

I looked up at Tanya. “This is it, Sandee, baby.”

She crossed her fingers at me, then stooped to pick up her blouse and skirt. She skipped into her own room.

I mashed out the cigarette and rolled off the bed. As I dressed I checked my small, personal arsenal. I was going to wear an open-collared sport shirt with slacks and a light jacket. Before putting on my shorts, I checked Pierre and placed the tiny gas bomb between my legs. Then I put on my pants and shoes, picked up Hugo’s sheath and connecting straps, and fastened the thin stiletto to my left arm. Next, I put on my shirt and buttoned it. The shirt was ivy, button-down collar, gray in color and long-sleeved. When it was on, I pushed my arm through the shoulder holster housing Wilhelmina. The stripped-down Luger would rest just under my left armpit. Shrugging into the lightweight sport coat, I was ready.

Tanya met me in the hall. We walked in silence to the open-cage elevator. Tanya’s lovely face was impassive as we rode down. I was searching the lobby looking for the man who had been sent to collect us.

We had reached the lobby. I pulled up the lever and slid the iron-barred doors of the elevator apart. Tanya moved two steps into the lobby. I was one step behind her and had just come up to her back when I saw him.

A boyhood of gangster films leads you to get a certain image of what a hood is supposed to look like. Most of the time that image is wrong. Today’s hood looks like today’s success. They remind you of attorneys, doctors, or bankers. But a thug is a thug is a thug. Time and methods change, but the organization never outgrew its need for torpedos or, as they were sometimes called, button-and-muscle men. They did the odd jobs. They were the ones who wired concrete blocks to ankles, the faces at the end of a submachine gun sticking out of a passing car, the ones who told you Mike or Tony or Al wanted to see you. The errand boys.

Rozano Nicoli had sent a torpedo to pick us up.

He lumbered toward us as we stepped from the elevator, huge shoulders as wide as a doorway. He wore a white tropical suit that tightened around his muscles. His arms swung almost to his knees, knuckles bruised and misshapen from hitting too many people, face welted and blotched and angled wrong from taking too many of the same kind of punches.

He had been a ring specialist a long time ago. You could tell by the curled meat that used to be his ears and the crooked z-shape of his nose. His eyes were almost hidden behind the two golf-ball puffs of flesh. And the scars were many. Fat scars above both eyebrows, a nasty one where the cheekbone had cut through the skin; the face looked without form, mushy and lumpy.

And there was another lump I noticed. A bulge under the left armpit of the tropical suit.

“Mr. Acasano?” he said in a low nasal hiss.

I nodded.

His stupid eyes swept from me to Tanya. “Who’s da broad?”

“My woman.”

“Uh... oh.” He blinked a lot, and had a faraway look as if he were daydreaming. “You’re suppose ta come with me.”

I took Tanya’s elbow and followed the moving house across the gingerbread lobby. When we got to the front door, he stopped and turned to us.

“I’m Quick Willie,” he said. “I know you’re Thomas Acasano, but I don’t know da broad’s name.”

“Do you have to know?” I asked.

He blinked on that for a few seconds. “Yeah. On accounta I gotta introduce her.”

“To who?”

“Da guy in da car.” He turned his back and stepped out onto the sidewalk. We followed.

A 300-series black Mercedes was waiting at the curb. As we walked up to it I saw an Oriental sitting in the front passenger seat. He watched us come with no expression on his face.

Quick Willie stopped us with a hand on my arm. “I gotta search you,” he said.

I lifted my arms and let him pat my chest. He reached inside the light sport coat and pulled out Wilhelmina. Then he patted my sides and legs. Very few searchers ever discovered Pierre or Hugo.

Then he turned toward Tanya, and for the first time since we met him, his small dull eyes brightened. “I gotta search her too.”

“I don’t think so,” I said softly.

Quick Willie’s small eyes bored a hole right through my head. Even the Oriental leaned over enough to watch. There was silence.

A blood-red Fiat came roaring by with no muffler. Another followed. Then three Lambrettas passed, their engines making the constant ring-a-ding-ding sound of the two-stroke. Narrow streets snaked off in every direction. The bright sun sent wispy heatripples up from the streets and sidewalks. Three blocks behind us was the harbor, but even here the smells of the sea came drifting by.

“I gotta search her,” Quick Willie said. “I got orders.”

The Oriental was watching me closely. He was immaculately dressed in a tailored sharkskin suit, light tan in color. The shirt was white, the tie striped brown and yellow. There was a curious kind of amused look on his face. His eyes were slanted, of course, and there were high cheekbones and a smoothness to the face. He gave off an air of assurance, as though there were few problems he could not handle, and handle well. He looked like the type of man who took charge, and earned a kind of fearful respect from others. There was that too, a ruthlessness. Sitting there with that amused look, he reminded me of a rattlesnake sunning himself. I had no doubt who the man was.

“You can’t search her, Willie,” I said.

Maybe I was blowing the whole thing. By refusing to allow Tanya to be searched maybe I was creating unnecessary trouble. I guess Nicoli had a right to let his torpedo clear all weapons before we got to the villa. But it was Tanya who got me off the hook.

She touched my arm lightly. “It will be all right, darling,” she said. “I don’t mind.”

“I don’t want that creep’s hands on you.”

“They won’t be on me for long.” She took two steps forward until she was almost bumping Willie. Raising her arms slightly she looked up into Willie’s mangled face. “O.K., big boy, frisk me,” she said out of the corner of her mouth.

He did. He patted everywhere, and although the search was quick, and revealed nothing, Quick Willie obviously relished it.

“Okay,” he said at last. He opened the back door of the Mercedes for us. “You still didn’t tell me da broad’s name.”

I smiled at him. “That’s right, Willie. I sure didn’t.”

We got in the back seat, and flinched when Willie slammed the door. When he got behind the wheel, the Oriental turned around in his seat to face us. His arm rested on the back of the seat. He was wearing a gold watch and a very large ruby ring on his little finger. He gave us a grin that revealed perfect teeth, sparkling white.

Then he extended his right hand back toward me. “Mr. Acasano, my name is Tai Sheng. I’ve heard a great deal about you.”

I took the hand. The grip was strong. “And I you, Mr. Sheng. This is Sandee Catron.”

“Yes, I gathered that. A pleasure, Miss Catron.”

We were all very good friends now. Quick Willie got the Mercedes purring, and we moved smoothly into the Fiat and Lambretta traffic.

Sheng had nodded toward Sandee, a gesture she returned, and as we rolled, he smiled broadly at me.

“May I call you Thomas?” he asked presently.

“Of course, please do.”

The smile broadened. “You brought the list, of course.”

“Of course.”

He held out his hand. “Rozano sent me to pick it up.”

I smiled back at him, then leaned forward with my elbows on my knees. “Mr. Sheng, I am no fool,” I said, keeping my voice even but firm. “I don’t know what your relationship is with Rozano but he and I go back more than ten years. We know each other well. His instructions were explicit; I was to deliver the list to him personally. You offend me by asking for the list. In doing so, you are calling me stupid and, Mr. Sheng, I am not stupid.”

In a voice as smooth as pouring olive oil, he said, “I assure you, sir, I did not intend to imply that you were... stupid. I was merely...”

“I am well aware of your intentions, Mr. Sheng. You wish to make yourself look large in Rozano’s eyes so you will receive special favors. Well, let me tell you, Rozano and I go way back. We are very close. You and I may be competing for his right hand, but sir, when it comes to his friendship you are out in the cold.”

He thought that over for a few seconds. “I was hoping, somehow, that we could be friends.”

I could feel the anger boiling inside me. I knew what this man was, and what he wanted. “For a long time, Sheng, you have been trying to discredit me in Rozano’s eyes. And now you insult my intelligence by asking for the list. You and I cannot be friends. We are competing with each other, and only one of us will win.”

He arched his eyebrows. “Just what are we competing for?”

“Territory. The organization in the States is in chaos. We need a leader, and that leader will be Rozano. We are competing for a seat by his side, for a large slice of the pie.”

His voice lowered to become intimate. “I am not competing with you, Thomas. I have other plans...”

“I don’t believe you.” With that I leaned back against the seat. “Rut all this is academic,” I said. “Rozano is going to be upset with you because you subjected my woman and me to a search.”

“We were ordered to.”

“We’ll see. I am turning the list over to Rozano, and no one else.”

He pursed his lips and stared at me. I think at that moment, if the circumstances had been right, he would have gladly killed me. Then he turned around with his back to us and stared through the windshield.

Quick Willie had driven the Mercedes away from the buildings of Palermo. Now we passed sun-bleached shacks with dark children playing in dirt yards. Some of the shacks had faded wooden picket fences around them. The children were dressed in ragged clothes as dirty as themselves. Now and then I saw a woman old before her years, sweeping the earthen floor of a shack, pausing to swipe a forearm across a sweat-beaded forehead.

I felt a whoosh of cool air as Quick Willie turned on the air conditioner in the Mercedes.

And everywhere there were the vineyards. The land was flat and the neat rows of vines seemed to stretch over every hill.

Tanya’s hand slid across the seat, groping for mine. I took it and found her palm warm and wet. We had crossed over. Up until this moment we could have boarded a plane and flown back to the States. If something had come up unexpectedly, Hawk could have contacted us and either postponed or canceled the assignment. It would have been over for us. But now we had passed the point of no return. Roth AXE and Hawk were out of it. Whether we survived or not depended entirely on our own ability.

The road climbed in lazy S-curves which stiffened to become switchbacks. Quick Willie drove slowly and expertly. I wondered how many times he had carted button men to their hits. Our ears started popping as we went up toward a cloudless sky.

Toward the top of the high hill we came to the first armed guard. He stood beside an iron-barred gate. Going off in both directions was a high concrete fence.

Besides a sidearm, the man had a sub-machine gun slung over his shoulder. When the Mercedes came around the last corner and cruised slowly toward the gate, he bent enough to see all of us and at the same time brought the sub-machine gun at the ready.

Quick Willie honked the horn and started to slow down. The guard hustled and pushed the gate open. He smiled and waved as we drove into the villa. I noticed he was wearing a brown jumpsuit.

Once through the gate we were flanked by rich green lawns with olive trees dotted here and there, and beyond were more vineyards. The mansion was straight ahead.

From what I could see, it looked like the top of a hill had been shaved flat. The villa sprawled over almost a quarter of a mile square. As we drove around in a large semicircle on the butter-smooth asphalt driveway we passed a landing field with an executive Lear jet tied down. There were many buildings surrounding the mansion. As we circled behind the mansion we passed three tennis courts, a nine-hole golf-course and a huge swimming pool which was dotted with six lovelies in skimpy bikinis. And then we went around the main mansion to the front.

Every window was covered with wire mesh. Each entrance had bars above it, probably ready to seal all openings at the touch of a button. There were seven white pillars in front of a long brick porch. The driveway circled around and passed in front of the mansion. Quick Willie braked to a halt in front of one pillar. There were four brick steps leading from the driveway to the porch.

The mansion itself was no less impressive. It stood three stories high, built of red brick with a tile roof. The windows were gabled and shuttered, and each one somehow caught sight of the deep blue Mediterranean.

Willie was quick getting out and hustling around the front of the Mercedes. He opened Tai Sheng’s door first, then ours.

Sheng started up the steps extending his arm toward the massive front door. “This way, please, Mr. Acasano.” There was no warmth in the oily smoothness of his voice, the words were sharp and cut off at the ends.

I took Tanya’s elbow and followed him. The mansion looked familiar somehow, as though I had seen it op one like it somewhere before. No, that wasn’t it; I had seen others like it just out of New Orleans. Old plantation mansions of the Deep South. It must have cost Nicoli a fortune to have all those bricks and pillars hauled over here.

Sheng rang the chimed doorbell and almost immediately it was opened by a huge Negro.

“Michaels,” Sheng said. “Is Mr. Nicoli available?”

The Negro wore a yellow turtleneck and gray slacks. His head was shaved bald. “He is in conference with his wife, sir.”

We entered on marble floors, polished to a luster more brilliant than my shoes. A large chandelier hung about twelve feet above us. This seemed to be some kind of foyer. Through an arched doorway I could see the marble floor lead into what looked like a study. Opposite was a flight of carpeted stairs.

“I’ll show you to your room,” Sheng said. He started for the stairs. Tanya and I followed, while Quick Willie brought up the rear.

“I would like to see Rozano as soon as possible,” I said as we climbed.

“But of course,” Sheng answered. There was no feeling in his words.

When we reached the landing, he led the way to the right. There was a carpeted hallway with doors staggered on each side. What I couldn’t get over was the overwhelming massiveness of the place. The ceilings all seemed to be at least twelve feet high, and the doors looked as thick as safes. There was an endless number of rooms.

We continued to walk. Then, for no apparent reason, Sheng stopped in front of one door. He pulled a ring of keys from his pocket and clicked the door open.

“Your room, Mr. Acasano,” he said flatly.

“What about my woman?”

He stood looking sleepy-eyed at my chest. I hadn’t realized how really small he was. The top of his head came to about two inches below my chin.

“We have another room for her.”

“I don’t like that,” I said angrily. “I don’t like it one damned bit.”

Only then did his slanted eyes raise to my face. “Mr. Acasano,” he said in a weary voice. “I am merely carrying out Rozano’s wishes. You will please wait inside.”

His arm was motioning toward the room. I had an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. “An order like that I would have to hear from Rozano personally.”

He smiled, showing me those perfect teeth. “An order?” he said, with raised eyebrows. “It is not an order, Thomas. Rozano only wishes for you to rest from your trip, and to think of your reunion with him. There is a time for the women, is there not? And a time for quiet contemplation.”

“I’ll tell you what you can do with your contemplation.”

“Please.” He held up his hand. “She will be in a room similar to yours. She will be quite comfortable.”

Tanya put her hand on my arm. “It will be all right, darling.” Then she gave Sheng a sidelong glance. “I’m sure Mr. Sheng is a man of his word. If he says I’ll be comfortable, then that’s what I’ll be right?”

I sighed. “O.K. Come here and give me a kiss, baby.” She did and we made it good for the gallery, then I patted her on the rear. “Behave yourself.”

“Always, darling.”

Everyone was smiling. I stepped into the room. The door was slammed shut behind me. And it was locked.

Eight

It was useless to pound against the door. It would be like beating against the brick walls. I turned my back on it and looked around the room. There was a comfortable-looking bed, a dresser, one table with two chairs, and landscape paintings of the Grand Canyon on the wall. The two windows looked out directly over the Mediterranean.

I could see the bleached city of Palermo far down the hill, and sailboats moving silently back and forth beyond the harbor. Closer were the vineyards and the olive trees and the high wall. But closer to me than anything else was the wire mesh over the window.

Besides the massive main door, there was a smaller one leading to a bathroom.

I paced back and forth. They had Wilhelmina, but I still had my little gas bomb and stiletto. I would wait, if that’s what they wanted, but I wouldn’t wait long. I couldn’t believe that Bozano Nicoli would actually leave instructions for his old friend Acasano to be locked up. It sounded more like Sheng’s idea.

There was no way I could get out except through that door. So, until they opened it, all I could do was wait. I went over to the bed and stretched out.

Many thoughts ran through my mind. There had been a security leak. Somehow Nicoli had found out my real identity. Maybe the real Acasano had somehow, in death, told of his own passing. Maybe he had left behind an envelope with instructions: Open only if I don’t have my usual cup of coffee at a certain place every morning. Then the open letter will explain that he was dead, and an AXE agent had been the last one following him.

Or maybe it had something to do with that Oriental snapping my picture in the hotel lobby. The image was clear. Nicoli suspects that his old friend, Acasano, has been done away with by agents of the Government. For some reason the agents want to penetrate his organization. They send one of their operatives over in an Acasano disguise. But Nicoli isn’t sure. Maybe Acasano isn’t really dead. There is one way to make certain. Have one of the kitchen staff snap a picture of Acasano as he comes into the hotel lobby. Compare the picture with old ones of the real Acasano, and see if there is any great difference.

An AXE disguise can be as close to perfect as you can get. But no disguise ever is going to compare favorably with the real article. Under close scrutiny, the disguise will lose every time. And maybe that’s what was happening right now. Nicoli was comparing the photo of me in the lobby with some ten-year-old photo of the real Acasano. How much does a man change in ten years? Not enough.

All this, of course, was pure conjecture on my part. Thinking ate up part of the afternoon. If what I was thinking was true, then I had to get out of there. And I had to find Tanya. There was no way of knowing in which room they had put her. I could search through this old place for a week and still not find half the hiding places.

I had one way of getting out. It was foolhardy, and would likely kill me, but it was a way.

Fire.

If I got some of the bedsheets burning close to the window and started hollering, the noise and smoke might bring someone to open that door. Hugo and I would be waiting. It was the only way I had.

Of course the whole room might be soundproof, in which case I would burn to death or get my lungs filled with smoke. To top off my good idea, I lit one of my gold-tipped cigarettes.

I smoked and looked at the canopy above me. First I’d have to get wet. The shower in the bathroom would take care of that. Then, lying flat on the floor with a wet washcloth over my face, I wouldn’t be bothered by the smoke for a while.

Rolling to the edge of the bed, I had just swung my legs over the side when I heard the lock in the door clicking. I shrugged and Hugo fell to my hand. I was leaving this room, and I didn’t care whom I had to go through to do it. The doorlatch clicked, and the door swung open. I got to my feet.

It was Michaels, the Negro who had answered the door. He was pushing a cart. When he had the cart next to me he took the cover off the dish. The steak looked thick and delicious. There was also a baked potato and some green beans. Next to the main dish was a side dish of salad, and a small bottle of Chablis.

Michaels was smiling. “Mr. Nicoli thought you might be hungry, sir.”

I hadn’t realized it, but I was. “Is he still in conference with his wife?” I asked.

“Yes, sir.” The Chablis had been in a bucket of ice. Michaels was working a corkscrew down into the top of the bottle. He pulled the cork out with a small pop, then poured a little of the white wine into the glass. He handed the glass to me. “Does this meet with your approval, sir?”

I sipped some of the wine and let it wrap itself around my tongue. It tasted very smooth.

“Mr. Nicoli sends his apologies for keeping the door locked, sir,” Michaels said. “It was necessary so you wouldn’t know where the young lady was being kept. The door will be unlocked from now on, sir.”

I frowned at him. “Kept? Why is Miss Catron being kept?”

Michaels continued to smile. He bowed as he backed out the door. “Mr. Nicoli will explain everything.”

“Really? When?”

“Soon, sir.” He turned and was gone. Not only did he not lock the door, but he left it open.

The food was getting cold, so I ate. It was nice to know I didn’t have to burn the place down. I ate angrily, partly because I didn’t know what to expect and partly because I didn’t like the way I was being treated.

When we face an obstacle we know there is no hope of conquering, we feel a very real kind of fear. But the unexpected produces a fear which stands all by itself. It is a gnawing, deep kind of panic that works on your guts.

I was so tensed up I couldn’t eat more than two or three bites. Why were they hiding Tanya? Trying to get something on me? Maybe they were torturing her to make her tell them who I really was.

Hugo was back in his sheath. I roughly pushed the cart away and walked out of the room. It wasn’t hard to find the stairway leading down. But before I left the landing I looked up and down the hallways. I didn’t know what I expected to find. Tanya, calling for me?

It would be easier if I could see the whole mansion. Then it would be easier to decide which would be the best place to imprison a girl.

I went down the carpeted steps two at a time. Michaels was emptying ash trays when I reached the bottom step. The ash trays looked like the kind they have in movie theaters. He nodded toward me and smiled as I walked by.

“Enjoy your dinner, Mr. Acasano?” he asked.

“Not much.” I went into the study and looked around.

It was a man’s room; books lined every wall. There was a lot of dark wood and black leather chairs. The room was dominated by a huge oak desk sitting in the middle. Another door led outside. I took it.

I entered another hallway with dark wood walls and continued down it to still another door. That led to a huge kitchen. What surprised me was all the smoke in the air, cigar and cigarette and pipe. The kitchen itself was an island affair; the sink, the stove, the oven, and the working counter were all built in an oblong in the middle of the floor. There was yet another door, leading to what must have been a service porch. That’s where they were.

Five men, sitting around a card table playing poker. They looked up when I came in, nodded a greeting, then went back to their game. The smoke was much heavier here. They all looked like hoods. They had the mangled ears, the bent and blotched faces, the broken noses. Their coats were off and they didn’t even try to hide the shoulder holsters hanging under their left arms.

“Wanna sit in for a few games?” one of them asked.

I shook my head. “No, thanks. Guess I’ll just watch for a while, if it’s all right.”

“Sure.” The man was dealing cards around. “Jacks or better,” he said to those around him. Then he looked up at me. “You’re an old pal of Rozano’s, right?”

I lit one of my cigarettes. “Yeah. We go back a long ways.”

“I’ll open,” another man said. There was a clink of plastic chips as he threw in two red ones.

“By me,” the one next to him said. “Too much for me,” the next man said. It went around until it reached the dealer.

He tossed two red chips in the pot. “Raise you a dime. Cards.”

When he had dealt around he gave himself two cards.

“Keeping a kicker?” the opener asked.

“It’ll cost you to find out, Louie.”

Louie threw in two red chips. “A dime.”

“Up another dime,” the dealer said. Then he looked up at me while Louie looked at his cards and thought. “So, has Rozano changed much over the years?”

“Don’t know,” I said. “I haven’t seen him yet. He’s been in conference with his wife ever since I got here.”

The man nodded with understanding. “Another battle. That might go on for hours. I keep telling him, Rozano, I keep saying. What you ought to do is get some nice young broad on the side, then it would be easier to take that wife of yours. But does he listen to me? No. The only one he listens to is that goddamn gook. It ain’t like the old days, right?”

“It sure isn’t,” I said. “In the old days a man had a little respect for his friends.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m calling,” Louie said, tossing in two red chips. “Let’s see what you’re so goddamn proud of, Al.”

Al smiled and fanned his cards face up in front of Louie’s nose. “Had you wired from the start, Louie. Three bullets.”

“Lousy jacks and tens,” Louie said in disgust. He threw down his cards while Al raked in the pot.

I said, “So how come Quick Willie isn’t here with you guys?”

Al shook his head. “That gook keeps Willie jumping. Poor Willie don’t like it, but what can he do? Rozano says, ‘You do what Tai Sheng tells you or you go back to the States and fry for that rape murder.’ Willie’s hands are tied.”

“I think I heard about that one,” I said. “Schoolteacher, wasn’t it? He had her on a boat for three days.”

Al nodded. “There wasn’t much he didn’t do to her either. Young broad too, maybe twenty-two or — three. He busted her up so bad he got scared. So, I guess he figured the only way was to knock her off completely.”

I used one of their ash trays to mash out my cigarette. “How did he get a name like Quick Willie?”

Al fixed me with a steady stare. “Don’t underestimate Willie, friend. He may not be a mental giant, but he is very fast. He got the name Quick because he is very, very fast in getting a rod to his hand and squeezing off those first three shots.”

“I see.” I stood with my hands behind me while the man next to Al dealt.

“Same game,” he said. “Jacks or better.”

There was a screen door leading out to the back patio. I eased around the poker table and went out. The swimming pool was about fifty yards in front of me. Evidently the girls had gone inside.

The well-manicured lawns flowed under olive trees in all directions around the pool. Far to my left were the tennis courts; beyond the oasis of trees and grass and structures stretched the vineyards.

I walked out from the mansion, past the pool and down the first row of vineyards. The vines had been picked clean of grapes. The earth between them was as soft as powder. When I had gone about twenty feet along the row I looked back at the mansion.

It stood majestic, looking like an old Virginia plantation home. Anyone who had just been transported there would not believe he was anywhere else but America. But something was wrong.

This was the first time I actually had a look at the entire side of the house. The thing was lopsided. On the left quarter of the place there were no windows. Three stories, windows spaced evenly across, except for that wide strip on the end. It wasn’t all that wide, maybe large enough to hold an elevator shaft. But surely not as wide as the house itself.

I started across the rows of vines, heading for the left corner of the house. If you looked at the mansion from the front, this would be the right side. As the side came into view, I stopped dead. No windows. The whole right face of the house did not have one window.

They tried to conceal it with a row of olive trees and honeysuckle vines growing up the house itself. But the wall was blank — no windows, no doors, nothing.

Rozano Nicoli had a section of that house unlike the rest of it. Was it a secret section? Is that where they had Tanya? With my head bowed in thought, I started back toward the swimming pool. I almost missed seeing Quick Willie coming toward me.

He lumbered with his long arms swinging like water hoses. Except the size of those arms were closer to fire hoses coming out of hydrants. There was a scowl on his face as he squinted against the sun.

I waited for him, letting my arms hang loose. What he wanted, I didn’t know. Maybe he was angry because I left the room.

Before he was five feet away, I could hear him puffing. He held his hand up in a friendly gesture. “Mr. Acasano,” he said in a quick pant.

“Keep moving like that, Willie, and you’ll have a coronary.”

“Heh, heh. Yeah, dat’s a good one. A coronary. Yeah. Dat’s a heart attack, huh?”

“Yeah, Willie.”

He stood in front of me, looking straight ahead across the vineyards. With his handkerchief he wiped his face and brow. There was a frown of concentration on his mangled and scarred face.

“I gotta tell you somethin’,” he said.

“What, Willie?”

He stared far off into the vineyards, blinking and frowning. His wheezing and panting was nasal. Breathing must have been very difficult for him.

Then his face suddenly brightened. “Yeah. Rozano says ta come get you. He’s ready ta see you now.”

I nodded and we started walking back toward the mansion. “What about my broad, Willie? Is she going to be there?”

If he heard me, he made no note of it. He just kept plowing ahead. For now he could not be confused with such complications as my questions presented; he was concentrating on just one thing, getting to the door of the mansion. As he stumbled along, I could almost hear him thinking. Right foot, then the left, then the right. Not far now. Where to after the door is opened?

The door was opened and I followed him. Although smoke still hung in the air, all the poker players were gone. From the looks of the cards and chips on the table, they must have left in a hurry.

Willie plodded on. Through the kitchen and down a short hallway that flanked the study. When he reached the stairs he paused to catch his breath. Then we climbed them one at a time. There was no sign of Michaels.

At the landing he turned left instead of right toward the room I’d been in. We passed more doors looking just as thick as the one closing off the room I’d been in. And then we came to a blank wall. It was wallpapered and looked just like the end of any hall. Willie stopped.

“What is it?” I asked with a frown.

He turned around and around slowly, his stupid eyes searching the floor. “Da button is here someplace.” Then the frown disappeared and once again his ugly face lit up. “Yeah,” he said softly. It was a discovery that he shared only with himself.

His toe touched a small square piece of the baseboard, and suddenly there came a whirring sound. The wall began to move. It slid slowly to the side, and when it was open another hallway on the other side was revealed with double doors at the end.

This hall was well lighted. I followed Willie toward the double doors, hearing the muffled sounds of voices as we approached them. Willie opened one, letting out more smoke, then he stood aside to let me enter.

There could be no doubt as to where I was. The windowless section of the house. I saw the men who had been playing poker downstairs. They were standing in a group, each with a drink in his hand. And then I saw Rozano Nicoli.

His back was to me but I had studied enough films of him to know him on sight. Michaels had just mixed him a drink and was handing it to him.

He turned and saw me. The face was much older than the films I had seen, but the years had been kind to him. He wore a perfectly tailored suit of expensive material. Physically, Nicoli was chunky, with short, stubby legs and a potbelly. He was almost completely bald except for a pelt of gray over each ear. His face was as round as a canteloupe and had about the same skin texture. Milky gray eyes looked at me through rimless bifocals; the nose was small and pert, the mouth a straight line just above his double chin.

This was the man who was taking over organized crime in the U.S. He started toward me, arms extended, standing about five-nine, smile showing gold fillings.

“Tommy!” he shouted. “Tommy, you old son of a bitch!”

I screwed my face in the grin I had seen pictures of Acasano wear. And then we were on each other, hugging and backslapping and grunting.

Nicoli patted my flat stomach. “How do you do it, huh? Look at you for Chrissake, you’re fifty-seven years old like me. And look at you. A full set of hair, and look at that goddamn belly!”

Grinning, I patted his pot. “Life is good to you, Rozano, huh?”

He had tears in his eyes, this little man who looked like the head of a bank loan department. His arm went around my shoulder and his garlic breath came close to my ear. “It’s good to have an ally here, you know. Tommy? Man gets in my position, he don’t know who to trust any more” His voice had been whispering.

“You don’t change, Rozano,” I said. “Always suspicious.”

He held his index finger up to me. “I got reason. Believe me, Tommy, I got reason. Hey! But what is this? A wake? Huh?” His arm pounded my back. “Hey, you guys! he shouted to the other men. I want you should meet my best goddamn pal in the whole world! Michaels, for Chrissake, Tommy has an empty hand!”

“Take care of that right away, sir,” Michaels said with a smile. He looked at me. “Mr. Nicoli says you take bourbon straight with a water chaser. That right?”

I nodded, remembering that’s what Acasano liked.

“Tommy,” Nicoli said when he had guided me to the group, “this is Al, Louie, Rick The Screw, Trigger Man Jones, and Martino Gaddillo, the best goddamn stick man in the business.”

I knew a stick man handled explosives, dynamite and nitrol mostly, for banks, or federal agent records.

Quick Willie came up behind us. “Hey, boss,” he said in his nasal voice. “I didn’t frisk him when he came in.”

Nicoli held his hand up to Willie’s face. “Whatsa matter with you, you stupid? Huh? You got his rod? Gimme! Come on, come on! Give it here. Search him? He’s my pal. We go back to when you were gettin’ your face smashed stealing hubcaps.” When he had Wilhelmina, he handed the Luger to me. He patted my back again as Michaels shoved the shot glass and water into my hand.

“Thanks,” I said to Nicoli. With the Luger back in its holster, I tossed down the shot, then rinsed my mouth with water.

Nicoli was grinning. “Good stuff, huh? Good?”

“Great.”

“Nothing but the best for my pal, right?”

We all smiled at each other. The room was not much different from any of the other rooms in the house, but it was probably the largest. There was living-room furniture scattered about and, along one wall, what looked like electronic gear.

Nicoli was leading me toward a comfortable-looking couch. “Come,” he said. “Let’s sit and talk where these other punks can’t hear every word.”

There was a television right in front of where we were sitting. I had noticed the absence of Tai Sheng in the room.

“Rozano,” I said, looking around. “Such security. And so tight, it’s beautiful. An ant couldn’t get through.”

He smiled modestly. “The bars and wire mesh are nothing.” Leaning closer to me, he lowered his voice. “Tell me, Tommy, am I making a mistake? Should I leave the running of the organization to someone else?”

It was a sucker question and I knew it. If I said yes, he would suspect me. And I didn’t want that.

“Who else could do it, Rozano? No one. Only you have the leadership ability to take over now.”

He sighed. “But there are so many against me. I no longer know who my friends are. Just last week someone tried to shoot me, one of my own staff. The sides are lining up, my old friend. And it is time to count noses.”

“You know where I stand.”

He patted my knee. “Yes, Tommy. I know.” The television in front of us remained blank. “Did you take care of that agent?” he asked suddenly.

“Agent?” Then I knew he was referring to the AXE agent who had been following the real Acasano. “Yes. Some concrete and wire and the Atlantic. He was well taken care of.”

“Where did you catch him?”

“In my home. Somehow he had broken in and was stealing the telegrams you and I had exchanged.”

“Oh?” His eyebrows arched. “Only the telegrams, nothing else?”

“What else...” I caught myself. “My friend, Rozano, I am not so stupid as to keep the list where a Government agent could find it.”

He smiled. “Of course not. But, Tommy, even you must be careful. There are enemies very close to you.”

I frowned at him. Maybe Acasano might have known what he meant but I sure as hell didn’t.

Then he nodded his shiny he ad forward. “See that television set? It is a video security unit. There is a camera mounted secretly in every room of the house.” He picked up a small control box. “With this remote control I can see any room I wish.”

“As I said earlier, Rozano, my friend, your security would be the envy of every man in the States.”

“Do you know what Government agency the man following you worked for?”

There it was again, another trick question from out of the blue. Was Nicoli testing me? If so, why? I found myself beginning to sweat.

“No,” I said. “I didn’t find out.”

Nicoli moved forward on the couch “Didn’t you search him after the hit?”

“Yes... sure I did, but he had nothing on him, no papers or identification.”

“Hmm.” He leaned back again, looking thoughtful “Of course he wouldn’t carry anything going out to your home Afraid he would be caught, huh?”

“Why all these questions. Rozano? Do you suspect me?”

“Ha!” he shouted, slapping my back. “Whatsa matter with you, my old friend, huh? Got a guilty conscience?”

I smiled weakly, and noticed that while the other men were still talking together, at least one of them was watching us at all times.

“My conscience is clear. I have been loyal to you, Rozano.”

He hugged me. And when he looked at me there were tears in his eyes once again. “My old friend, I know. You and I go back too far for treachery, huh? But I am so sorry for you.”

“Sorry?” I asked with a frown. “But... why?”

“Watch.” He picked up the control box from the stand next to the couch and pushed a button.

My eyes were glued to the television set as it started to brighten. There was flickering with wavy lines across the screen, then a picture came on.

There was a room. There was no furniture except one straight-backed chair. A girl was sitting in the chair with her head bent over so I couldn’t see her face. As I started to speak, Tai Sheng came on the screen.

He had lost some of his polish. Even in black and white I could see he was sweating. In shirtsleeves, with the collar unsnapped, a few strands of hair hanging over his forehead, he stepped over to the girl.

Nicoli was sitting quietly beside me. If I was breathing I wasn’t aware of it. Tai Sheng grabbed a handful of the girl’s hair and lifted the head up enough for us to see the face.

It was Tanya. Her face was bruised and bleeding. I stared without believing. And even as we watched, Tai Sheng backhanded Tanya across the face. Then he doubled his fist and smashed her hard on the cheek. With a click the screen went blank.

I spun toward Nicoli. “You had better have a damned good reason for this,” I hissed. “That’s my broad that gook is slapping around.”

He held his hands up, palms toward me. “Please, my friend. I can understand your shock. Imagine how shocked we were when we found out.”

“Found out what? Just what the hell are you talking about?” My guts were burning with rage. I wanted to tear the little bastard apart; give him open-heart surgery and go in through the bottom of his feet.

But he sat there smiling sympathetically for me! Then he nodded. “I can see she fooled you, Tommy, as well as all the others.”

This was all going a little too swiftly for me. I was trying to figure where we had slipped up. There must have been a large confused frown on my face.

“Tommy, have you ever heard of a Government organization called AXE?”

Somewhere inside my head a part of me snapped to attention. It would have been easy for me to panic. Instead this part of me stepped back two paces and looked at the whole thing objectively through my eyes.

Tanya was being tortured. Not because of what she knew about me. After all, Rozano had been sympathetic toward me. He had said that I too had been fooled. So, it wasn’t me they had found out about, it was Tanya. And Nicoli wanted to know if I had ever heard of AXE.

I shrugged, then said cautiously, “Maybe I could have read about it in the paper or seen something on television.”

Nicoli seemed pleased that I didn’t know much about the organization. He leaned toward me with his eyes shining behind the bifocals. “Tommy, my good friend, it’s like the FBI or the CIA. This AXE is a Government agency out to crush us.”

“That’s impossible.”

“To you and me, good friend, it sounds indeed impossible. This thing of ours, this Cosa Nostra, is much too big and powerful to crush. But still the Government keeps on trying, huh?”

“So what has this got to do with my woman?”

The gold fillings were sparkling. “Your woman is not the Sandee Catron she pretends to be. She is, in fact, an undercover agent for AXE sent here to Palermo to assassinate me!”

My mouth dropped open. “I can’t believe it,” I said in a whispered rush.

“So far Sheng hasn’t been able to get her real identity, but he has ways. It will just take time.”

I rubbed the back of my hand across my lips, then adjusted my trouser crease. He was watching me closely and I knew it. To show anything other than shock would have told him something. I made sure my hand was shaking when I lit one of my cigarettes.

“Rozano,” I said calmly. “I am not a man to jump to conclusions. I have known Sandee for a time, perhaps not as long as I have known you, but long enough. To hear something like this about her is a deep shock. As much as I admire you, my friend, I cannot take this without some kind of proof.”

He put his hand on my shoulder. “Logical, Tommy, That is why I have always admired you. Logical Of course you must have proof, and I will give it to you After all what are friends for, huh? I will open your eyes to this thing.”

“Perhaps there is the possibility you may be wrong.”

“No,” he said shaking his head. His hand was still on my shoulder. “Sheng has proved himself a good ally. His men are everywhere.”

“Sheng is a man to be watched,” I said without feeling. “He will go far.”

Nicoli nodded. “Sometimes I think perhaps he steps too far. But he is useful, very useful. Listen carefully, Tommy. About a week ago there was a Chinese cook in one of the large Lake Tahoe restaurant-casinos. This man reported seeing Sandee Catron come out of a mountain cabin. He also saw three men. Since the cook was a good man working for Sheng, he decided to do a little checking. By asking around he learned that the men were newcomers. He already knew that Sandee Catron was your woman, so he checked with Chinese Communist American Headquarters in San Francisco’s Chinatown. To his surprise he learned that Sandee was supposed to be in her New York apartment with you. If that was true, then who was the exact duplicate there at Lake Tahoe?”

I smoked and listened. The picture was becoming very clear to me.

Patting my shoulder to emphasize each sentence, Nicoli went on. “This cook had given a description to his headquarters of the three men in the cabin. Word came from San Francisco that one of the men was on file in Peking as an agent from a Government organization called AXE. Since one man was an AXE agent, logically, so were the other two. Why did they have a girl who resembled Sandee Catron? When Sheng told this to me, I thought these AXE agents had planted an impostor in New York and had kidnapped the real Sandee Catron. And I thought the reason for it was so the undercover agent could get the list from you, or get the information out of you somehow. These broads can be very persuasive, huh, Tommy?”

“Very. So, at first you thought she was after me. What made you change your mind?”

He shrugged. “The girl came to Palermo with you. That meant she served another purpose. And then it was so obvious I cursed myself for being stupid She was sent to assassinate me so I wouldn’t take over in the States.”

I leaned to my left and mashed the cigarette out in the ash tray. The act bought me a little time to figure how I was going to react to all this.

“So?” Nicoli said. “What does my old pal, Tommy Acasano, think of all this?”

I looked at him with pursed lips and a frown. “How did this cook, this stranger I have never met, know that Sandee Catron was my woman?”

A flush came to his face. He blinked at me, took off his rimless glasses, and started wiping them with a spotless handkerchief. Then he cleared his throat and fixed me with a steady stare.

“Tommy, you and I have been friends for more than a decade. We have seen many changes in this thing of ours. We have seen the young punks rise and the old masters go down in defeat. Change is constant, even in a business as stable as ours. You and I have not seen each other in ten years. It could be someone else from another family has won your loyalty.”

“Rozano!”

He held his hands up, shaking his head. “No, it is true. Such a thing could happen.”

“Not to us.”

His hand went back to my shoulder. He was smiling now. “I know that now. But how was I to know, with you all the way across the ocean, huh?” He shrugged. “I am one step from the top. I cannot afford to trust anyone. Every man on my team has been screened and continuously checked for months. Even you, my friend.”

“I see.” He watched me lean back and cross my legs.

“Forgive me,” he said in a voice that sounded almost whining. “But I felt such measures were necessary.”

“That I can understand.”

“Of course all the information was filtered back to me in strict confidence. I knew all about you and the Catron broad, about the accident that broke both the boyfriend’s legs, the apartment you got for her, how you spent most of your time there, everything. It is all on file in San Francisco.” He looked at me sympathetically. “You have been played for a sucker, Tommy.”

I leaned forward, slapping my fist into my open palm, “That bitch! That double-crossing little tease! Sure. Pretending headaches all the time, or giving some excuse not to go to bed with me. I should have been suspicious then.”

Nicoli smiled as though he had just been convinced of something. “Tommy, I am touched. You don’t know how good it makes me feel to hear you say that. If you had been sleeping with the girl, there would be no way she could fool you. You would have to know she was different, that she was not Sandee Catron, and that would mean you were in the assassination plot with her.”

“Impossible.”

“Yes. Impossible. I know that now. But to prove your loyalty to me, my friend, may I have the list?”

“Certainly.” I unfastened my belt and pulled it out enough to reveal the secret zipper on the inside. He watched me closely as I pulled out the rolled piece of paper and without hesitation handed it over to him. “I will do more than this,” I said. “The girl made a fool of me. She has to pay for that. No man would respect me knowing I had been duped by a broad. She has to be hit and hit hard. And, Rozano, I feel that I am the only one entitled to do it.”

Nicoli carefully unrolled the piece of paper. Holding it under his nose, he looked at it through the bottom half of his bifocals.

In a matter-of-fact voice, and without taking his eyes from the list, he said, “No, Tommy, that won’t be necessary. I have other plans for you. Tai Sheng will take care of the girl.”

Nine

My mind raced as Nicoli continued to read over the list. I couldn’t allow Sheng to kill Tanya but I didn’t even know where they had her. Nicoli had kept the box hidden against his side so I couldn’t see which room button he pushed. Yet, somehow, some way, I had to stop them from killing her. The television was shut off now. For all I knew, Sheng could have already killed her.

Nicoli cleared his throat, then carefully rolled the paper again. “Yes, it is about what I expected.” He smiled at me. “You did well, Tommy.” Then he sighed, leaned back, and waved to the other men in the room. “You can go now.”

They nodded in unison, put their glasses down immediately, and followed Michaels to the door. Michaels left with them.

“It is going to work well for us, Tommy. I have waited a long time to get back home. Now I’m ready. Soon you’ll be a very wealthy man, my friend.”

“I’m a wealthy man now.”

“Hah! Chicken feed. What do you make, huh? Eighty, a hundred thousand a year?”

“A hundred and thirty thousand. That includes my interest in the loan-shark business and the numbers racket.”

He leaned forward with excitement dancing in his gray eyes. “Man, I’m talking about millions! How would you like to rake in one or two million a year, huh?”

“It would be nice.”

“Think you could live on that, huh? With ninety-nine percent of it tax-free? I’m going to blow the States wide open. We’re pushing the penny-ante punks off importing heroin and cocaine. That will be taken over by us. Everything will be stepped up: prostitution, the rackets, jukeboxes, and vending machines. And we’re going to have more pull in Washington. I got two Senators and three Congressmen ready to play ball for a price. They’ll get themselves on the right committees. Then whenever the Government tries to come after us, or some newly elected Senator wants to make a name for himself by attacking organized crime, our boys there will launch a whitewash investigation, just like some boys did when they were after insurance companies. A couple of two-bit punks will be arrested, and that will be that. Free rein again.”

“You make it sound easy, Rozano.”

He frowned at me. “What is it, Tommy? You got no enthusiasm. Still moonin’ over that dumb broad? Huh? You’ll have a hundred broads. Gorgeous broads, and stacked. You’ll get tired picking from them because they’ll all be knockouts.”

I was shaking my head. “That’s not it, Rozano. It’s that Sheng. I don’t like him. It bothers me that he’s in with us. How do you know you can trust him? He’s a goddamn Communist, isn’t he?”

“Tai Sheng has been very helpful to me,” Rozano said with a smile. “He will be even more helpful once we get into power.”

“Perhaps. Rut there have been whispers among those family heads who support you. None of them like this Sheng. We have never needed enemies of our country before. Why now? Our form of government is what allows us to operate. We wouldn’t make a dime in a Communist country. So why him? The family heads think the Oriental group is very strong in the States. They are well organized in every ghetto and Chinatown. Maybe, with Sheng as their leader, they plan to take over the families and shove you out in the cold. Remember, he has been with you for quite a while. He knows a great deal about how this thing of ours operates.”

“Fairy tales!” Rozano almost shouted. “What am I? A two-bit operator? Huh? I don’t know men? I haven’t screened those who come to me?”

“I wasn’t saying that. All I was...”

“Nonsense, Tommy. That is what you have been saying. I do not operate on whispers, but on performance. Sheng has already proved his value.”

I leaned back and hiked my knee up. There was one ace I hadn’t played yet. “Rozano, we are good friends. I was not going to tell you this.”

“Tell me what? Is it about Tai Sheng?”

I nodded. “It was when he came to the hotel to pick us up. As soon as I got in, he told me to turn over the list to him. He got very upset when I told him nobody would get it except you.”

He frowned and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “That’s odd. He knew you were to bring the list here to the villa. Why would he do such a thing?” Nicoli stood and crossed to a small control panel. He pushed a button.

Almost immediately the door opened and Michaels came in. “Yes, sir?”

“Tell Louie to bring Sheng to me.”

Michaels bowed and went out. Nicoli paced back and forth, checking his watch now and then. Presently he came back to the couch.

“Tommy,” he said brightly. “How would you like to see what I’ve been doing on this side of the pond?”

“I’d like that very much.”

“Good! The plane will be ready soon, in fact they are loading it now. Another shipment is going to Istanbul.”

“A shipment of what?”

“Heroin.”

The door opened and Nicoli jumped to his feet. Sheng came in wearing his perfect-teeth smile. He did not look at me. I noticed he had put his coat on, straightened his tie, and combed his hair. There was no sign of fatigue, nor of Tanya.

“You wished to see me, Rozano?” he said in his oily voice.

“Tommy tells me you wanted the list from him when you picked him up at the hotel.”

For an instant the smile wavered, but Sheng recovered quickly. “And you believed him?”

“Of course I believed him. Why wouldn’t I believe him? Are you denying it?”

The smile broadened. “No, it is quite true. I did ask for the list. It was my intention to deliver it personally to you, Rozano. I do not trust this Acasano, I have never trusted him. It is difficult to believe he was totally ignorant of the girl’s being an agent.”

“That’s beside the point. The girl fooled a lot of good men.”

“As you wish, Rozano. But I think this Acasano is lining up the families in the States against you, not for you.”

Nicoli took a step toward the Oriental. “Perhaps I am not as bright as you, Sheng. But you had better be able to prove that, or on my mother’s grave you will pay for such a statement.”

The smile on Sheng’s face vanished. “Rozano, I never say anything I am not prepared to prove. I have a man in Istanbul who has information on Acasano. The man had been instructed to check him out. A photo was taken when Acasano entered the Corini Hotel in Palermo. It has been enlarged and studied very carefully. My man will compare it with photos taken of Acasano ten years ago.”

Nicoli was frowning. “What are you trying to say, Sheng? That Tommy is not Tommy? That he’s somebody else?”

“Exactly. An agent for AXE, working with the girl.”

Rozano Nicoli let out a large run of deep laughter. He backed to the couch, still laughing, and almost fell to a sitting position. He punched my shoulder. “You hear that, Tommy? You’re not you!”

Sheng’s face was tensed with rage. “I am not used to being laughed at, Rozano.”

“Forgive me. But it sounds like some goddamn movie.” He squeezed my arm. “This is Tommy Acasano, my old friend. I know that.”

I wished I could laugh the whole thing off as easily as Nicoli had. But I was worried. No disguise in the world was going to hold up to close scrutiny when compared with the real article. Tai Sheng had nailed Tanya and me exactly right, and it gave me chills knowing how thorough the man was.

“I will show you the proof, Rozano, as soon as we reach Istanbul,” Sheng said.

Killing both Nicoli and Sheng would have been easy for me right then. I could fake the shipment and have agents pick up all the contacts between here and Saigon. But sitting there staring at Sheng, I realized that something new had been added to the assignment. There were too many Chinese Communist contacts in the States. Too many for one man to remember. Somewhere within Sheng’s reach there had to be another list of some kind showing all the Chicoms operating in the U.S. I had to get that list.

“Well,” Nicoli said, standing once again. “It is obvious you two are not going to get along. You hate each other, and this is bad for the family. You are both important in different ways. But I am making no decisions about anything right now. When we get to Istanbul we will see what is what, huh?”

“Whatever you say, Rozano,” Sheng said. He moved to the bar and began making himself a drink. Not once had he looked at me.

“We have a shipment to get out, that comes before anything personal.” Rozano looked at me, shaking his head. “You see, Tommy, this is why we must control all the drugs going into the States. There is so little profit in working it this way, sending the stuff to Saigon. It seems everybody along the way has his hand in the pie.”

There was a knock on the door. Michaels came in. “Sir,” he said. “I have just been told the plane is ready.”

“Good, good,” Nicoli said, nodding.

Sheng’s voice came from the bar. His back was to us. “What do you want me to do about the girl?” he asked.

“Bring her along. We’ll deal with her just like we did the others.” He smiled at me then. “Tommy, my old friend, you will walk with me to the plane, and sit next to me, huh? On the way to Istanbul there will be much to discuss.”

Ten

The flight took two and a half hours. We took off from the strip and circled back around as we climbed. Still climbing, the Lear jet flew over Palermo and across the Ionian Sea. When we were over Greece the altitude was so great I couldn’t see any of the ruins. But Mount Olympus, home of the mythical gods, stayed just beyond the tip of our left wing for quite a while. And then we flew across the Aegean Sea and started dropping toward Istanbul. Below lay the Bosporus.

The plane was a new Lear jet, the 24C model, carrying a take-off weight of 12,499 pounds. I had noticed a winged tiger painted on the tail as we were boarding. Tai Sheng, of course, was at the controls.

I was sitting next to a window with Nicoli beside me. The sun had almost set when we made our final approach just outside Istanbul. We were going to land on a small, grassy field. Beyond it I saw a harbor with one cabin cruiser docked.

We had ended up taking quite a group. Thankfully, Tanya was one of them. Besides her, me, Nicoli, and Sheng in the cockpit, there was the torpedo, Quick Willie; the bald Turk who had been introduced as Konya, and who I thought was the Istanbul contact for the heroin; and one of Sheng’s boys, whom I recognized as the man who had snapped my picture in the hotel lobby. We weren’t introduced.

Nicoli had been talking during the whole trip, telling me how he planned to operate La Cosa Nostra once he returned to the United States.

“Here is the way I plan to divide it up, Tommy,” he was saying. “We’ll use Vegas as our central headquarters. A national and worldwide network will operate from there. We won’t want any flunkies moving in and out of Vegas, it would draw too much attention. Only family heads and district managers. Your district, Tommy, will naturally be everything west of Chicago. Now, we’re going to need someone from the list to take care of the East. Some of the boys are pretty good but...”

I listened with half an ear. Tanya was sitting somewhere toward the tail section of the plane. I couldn’t see her without turning around, and that would be too obvious. She had been hustled aboard by Sheng’s man and I hadn’t gotten more than a glimpse of her. Her head had been bowed and she’d had trouble with her legs. The Oriental had to hold her up.

“...So that’s his problem,” Nicoli said. Then he paused. “Are you with me, Tommy?”

I blinked and looked at him. “Sure, Rozano, I’m hearing every word.”

“Good. The East is wide open, there’s terrific potential there. I want your help in picking out a good man to...”

The words came together in a steady drone, blending with the whistle of the jet engines and wind rushing across the plane. The horizon was scarlet with the setting sun. Slightly behind where we were dropping sat the city of Istanbul. The grassy field looked to be part of a private estate, either belonging to the Turk, Konya, or to Nicoli himself.

There was plenty occupying my mind as I felt my ears popping. Besides the concern I felt for Tanya, I was wondering what Sheng’s man in Istanbul would have to say. Looking out the window, I could see an object below — two objects, actually. They looked like cars, but it was getting too dark to tell.

If Sheng had access to files which had a record of that AXE agent at Lake Tahoe, it was possible he could get a file on Nick Carter.

“...I think he would be a good candidate for the East Coast. Tommy, are you listening?”

I smiled, shaking my head. “I’m sorry, Rozano. This altitude, making me dizzy, I guess.”

He frowned. “You never had a problem with heights before.”

“Age changes us all, my friend.”

“Yes, that is true.” He shifted in his seat and watched me closely. “I was thinking of Frank The Cook Desmond. It’s true he isn’t one of us, I mean not of Italian descent, but he’s loyal to me, and smart. What do you think?”

I still wasn’t listening completely. “Frank sounds fine to me,” I said nodding. The name meant nothing.

“I see,” Nicoli said softly. He seemed to settle in his seat with his pudgy hands folded across his lap.

“Rozano,” I said. “I have a strange feeling about this Tai Sheng. Before I received your telegram, two Orientals broke into my apartment and searched it completely. They tore the place upside down, looking for something.”

“Oh?” His eyebrows raised. “And you think Sheng sent them? Huh?”

“Damned right. I caught them and they tried to kill me.”

He sat up straight and looked at me for a few seconds before speaking. “What would you like me to do about him, huh? Have him hit just because you don’t like him?”

“Run a thorough check on him. Find out about his ambitions, and which is more important to him: his loyalty to his Communist Party or his loyalty to you.”

“I have done that, Tommy.”

“Okay, I’ll tell you what I think. He’s after the list. Those two Orientals in my apartment were looking for something specific. They were out to get that list, under Sheng’s orders.”

Nicoli looked unimpressed. He nodded slightly, then let it drop. Suddenly, out of nowhere, he said, “It is getting so a man can’t trust those in his own organization.” And that was all.

Something was wrong here. He had cooled toward me. Had I slipped somewhere? Said the wrong thing? My mind retraced what had just been discussed. But the only thing that stood out was his saying he couldn’t trust those in his own organization.

Now he acted as though I wasn’t there. His double chin dropped to his narrow chest and his eyelids fluttered as though he was falling asleep.

The Lear jet had made its pass and was now circling to land on the grassy field. The sun was a flaming red ball on the horizon. It would be dark in less than an hour.

“Rozano?” I said.

He held his hand up to silence me. “I have heard everything you said. Now we will wait and see.”

Eleven

There was very little bumping when the Lear jet touched down on the grassy field. It settled to a bouncing roll as it passed swiftly by the two vehicles. I could see what they were now: a black Mercedes and a Volkswagen bus.

When the jet had slowed enough, Tai Sheng turned it slowly around and taxied back to the waiting cars. Two Turks came out of the Volkswagen and rushed to chock and tie down the plane.

I saw this from my window as the jet braked to a halt. There was a whining sound as a door with aluminum steps was pushed out and lowered.

Konya was the first on his feet. He passed by us, his bald head shining from the overhead lights, and moved out the door and down the steps. The other two greeted him and all three began to speak in Turkish.

Tai Sheng came out of the cockpit door and without looking at Rozano or me bounded down the steps and began walking rapidly toward the Mercedes. At that instant the back door of the black Mercedes opened and a sharply dressed Oriental got out. He greeted Sheng with a handshake and a curt nod. The two men began talking.

“Let’s go,” Nicoli said to me.

I was hoping to be able to turn around and at least get a look at Tanya when we stood to leave the plane. But Nicoli moved out into the aisle and stood by the backs of the seats while I got up. It would have been too obvious for me to look back over his head to see Tanya. She had been proved unloyal. I was supposed to dismiss her existence.

Sheng’s man, the Oriental who had been in the plane with us — the same one who had snapped my photo in the lobby of the hotel — pushed past us and hurried down the steps. That left just Tanya and Quick Willie behind us.

As Nicoli and I stepped from the plane, I saw the three of them — Sheng, the man who had gotten out of the Mercedes, and now the other Oriental — all in a serious conference with their heads together. Then Sheng said something to the one who had taken my picture. The man gave him a short bow and walked to the Volkswagen bus. He climbed in behind the wheel and waited.

Nicoli and I had come down the plane steps. The sky had taken on the dark gray of twilight. Tiny gnats tickled against my face, trying to get in my eyes. The air was warm and muggy. I felt my palms sweating. There was too much about this scene that I didn’t like.

Suddenly Nicoli turned back toward the plane, just as Quick Willie’s heavy feet pounded on the hollow aluminum steps. I turned around with him. Although it was almost dark, I got a better look at Tanya than I’d had since we were separated.

“What do I do widda broad, boss?” Willie asked.

A rage was building inside me. She had found the strength to lift her head slightly. Both eyes were puffy and had a yellow-and-purple tint to them. There was still some dried blood under her lower lip where a tooth had come through. Her jaw was swollen.

“Let me take care of her, Rozano,” I said.

He shook his head. “No, this is Willie’s specialty. Take her down to the dock. Get rid of her like the others, an overdose of heroin and the Black Sea. AXE can add another dead agent to its list.”

“Right, boss.” Willie grabbed Tanya roughly by the arm and pulled her, stumbling and staggering, down the rest of the steps and past us toward the Volkswagen bus.

We watched them as the Oriental started the bus and drove to meet them halfway. The side door was slid open and Willie shoved Tanya inside.

“It should have been me,” I said to Nicoli. “I should have been the one taking care of the broad.”

He ignored me. The coolness was still there. We walked across the ankle-high grass toward the Mercedes where Sheng and his friend were still talking.

The bus was almost out of sight now, driving toward the dock. I remembered seeing the dock area from the air. There had been a cabin cruiser. That was probably where Willie was taking her.

As we approached the Mercedes, Sheng and the other Oriental suddenly stopped talking. Then Nicoli started chuckling to himself.

“Quick Willie enjoys this part of his job. He will have some fun with that broad before he finally knocks her off.” He shook his head, still chuckling. “Yeah, Quick Willie does like his broads.”

I knew I had to get to that boat somehow. Any list Sheng had would have to wait. I was judging distance and time. Nicoli was closest. I’d kill him first. But by then Sheng and his friend would be reaching for their own weapons. Could I get them both before Konya and the other two Turks came running?

There was now just enough twilight to see by. We were standing in a small group. It was too dark to see expressions on faces; eyes were just dark shadows. The gnat population had doubled and seemed to like our heads.

The trunk of the Mercedes was open. Konya, the bald Turk, was helping the other two carry plain cardboard cartons from the trunk to the plane.

Tai Sheng was looking straight at me. Without moving his head, he said, “Rozano, I would like to speak with you alone.”

Nicoli took a backward step away from us. “Why?” he asked.

“I wish to speak with you about your friend from America.”

In the darkness the movement was so quick it had been impossible to see. But suddenly Rozano Nicoli had pulled his revolver and was standing apart from us aiming it at me.

“What is this now?” I asked.

Even Sheng seemed a little surprised, but he recovered quickly. He stood silently with his hands locked in front of him. Konya and the two Turks were at the plane.

“I can’t trust anyone any more,” Nicoli said. “Even those I thought were closest to me have betrayed me.” The gun went momentarily from me to Sheng.

He stiffened. “What!” he said in a hoarse whisper. “Rozano, you do this to me?”

“Yes,” Nicoli shouted. “To you. I have been double-crossed by everybody, even you. First I learn that you want the list. You tell Tommy that I sent you to collect it. That was a lie. And then, on the plane, I hear that two Orientals have torn Tommy’s apartment apart looking for something. He tells me he thinks they were after the list. I think they were your men, Tai Sheng.”

“They were,” the smooth, oily voice said.

“Aha! Then you admit you were after the list.”

“I admit nothing. How dare you question me! You would be stealing fruit from the outdoor markets of Palermo if it hadn’t been for me. I set up the heroin route. I have the connections in America. I will be the one to make you wealthy.”

“In exchange for what?”

“Nothing more than the same respect I have for you.”

Nicoli raised the gun slightly. “You still haven’t answered me. Were your men after the list?”

“Certainly not.” There had been no panic or even concern in Sheng’s voice. It was as though he were chatting about a rice harvest or the weather. “What do I care about your list? It means nothing to me.”

“But you admit that the two men who searched Tommy’s apartment worked for you?”

“Indirectly, yes.”

“And what were they looking for, if not the list?”

“Evidence, Rozano. Which I now have. Did your good friend, Acasano, tell you he killed those two men and dumped them in a trash can?”

“They were out to kill me,” I said. “One of them pulled a knife.”

“Do you both think I am a fool? Huh? You think I don’t know when I am being stabbed in the back?” Rozano was hoarse with rage.

Konya and the two Turks were on the plane, out of sight, probably stacking the cartons. I could see the Volkswagen bus returning, its headlights’ getting brighter. Tanya and Quick Willie would not be inside. Visions of what Willie might now be starting worked their way into my mind. I had to get over to that boat.

Sheng raised his oily voice only slightly. “Rozano, you stand with the gun aimed at me. What of this Acasano? What of the charges I made against him? Are they to go unanswered? I agree, you have been betrayed. But not by me.”

“I don’t trust either of you,” Nicoli spat out. “If I had any sense, I would kill you both right here and now.”

Both Sheng and his Oriental friend seemed to relax. Their arms hung loosely at their sides. Sheng took half a step forward.

“That would not be a wise thing to do, Rozano.”

For a few seconds there was silence. Each of us had our own thoughts. I could guess what was running through Nicoli’s mind. He didn’t know which of us to trust, if either. His organization was tight-knit. To kill anyone as high-ranking as me or Sheng would leave a gap that would be difficult to fill. Especially since he didn’t have any positive proof that either of us had betrayed him. Sheng I couldn’t read. The man was impossible to psych out.

The Volkswagen bus was getting closer now. I could hear the mechanical ticking of its engine. The lights were beginning to illuminate the four of us standing next to the Mercedes. The Turks were still on the plane out of sight.

I only had one thought on my mind: getting away and making it to the boat before Quick Willie had his unique brand of fun with Tanya and shoved her system full of heroin.

Then Nicoli swung the gun toward me. “I think I trust you least of all, Tommy. There is something in what Tai Sheng says. He tells me he thinks you are lining up the families against me, not for me.”

“That’s rubbish,” I said loudly. “Rozano, my old friend, we go back too many years for this. We came up in the organization together. Who is better to lead all the families, huh? Me?” I shook my hand. “No, I am good with figures and books, but I cannot organize. The families would not flock to me as a leader. No, my friend, you are the only one to take over. You and I are friends. We go back a long time. What would I gain by cutting you out? Nothing. Now ask your friend, Sheng, what he would gain if you got squeezed out.”

“Friendships are no good any more!” Nicoli shouted. “This thing of ours is in jeopardy, it has no leadership.” Tears started coming to his eyes. “Tommy, Tommy, you were my dearest and sweetest friend. But it is you who have crossed me.”

I frowned in disbelief. “You are wrong, my friend. It wasn’t me.”

He nodded sadly, tears still streaming down his cheeks. “Yes, Tommy, it was you. It was when we were talking on the plane. I asked you who you thought would be a good candidate for the East Coast. You agreed that Frank The Cook Desmond would be good. I tricked you, Tommy. It was a bad thing to do but I felt I had to. You see, The Cook was killed last week in Las Vegas. A taxicab ran over him.”

My mind raced. That was where I had slipped. But I wasn’t dead yet. “That doesn’t mean I betrayed you. The Cook was on the list, you were considering him for the East Coast. Sheng’s men probably hit him. I’ll bet the cab driver was Oriental.”

But Nicoli was still shaking his head. The tears on his cheeks sparkled against the lights of the approaching Volkswagen bus. “That is not the point, Tommy. The point is I learned of the death by an overseas phone call — from my good friend, Thomas Acasano.”

“Who are you, pal?”

Twelve

The bus was coming alongside now, its headlights making the area around us bright. It was about to stop. The Turks were still out of sight in the plane.

Tai Sheng was smiling broadly in self-satisfaction. “Rozano, I learned something else about your good friend, Thomas Acasano. The photo taken in the lobby of the hotel was enlarged and then compared with a photo taken ten years ago. My men used magnifying glasses to look for differences. There were many. If you look closely you will see that the bone structure of the nose is quite different. Also the curve of jawline. The distance across the bridge of the nose from eye-pupil to eye-pupil measures almost a quarter of an inch off between the two photos. This man is an impostor, Rozano.”

“Yes,” the little man said, nodding. The gun never wavered from my stomach. “But please go on, Sheng. This is fascinating.”

Sheng’s perfect teeth shined brightly in the headlights. He was enjoying himself. “Since we knew who this man wasn’t, we decided to find out exactly who he was. He had one drink at your villa, straight bourbon, I believe. My man here lifted the prints from the glass. When we sent them along with the photo by coded wire to Intelligence Headquarters in Peking, the results were very interesting.”

Nicoli took a step forward. “So? So? Don’t play games with me, Sheng. Who is he?”

“Peking has a very large file on him. Oh, I don’t suppose a man in your position would have ever heard of him, but I have. You see, Rozano, the girl pretending to be Sandee was not working alone. She was working with another AXE agent, a very good agent we call Killmaster. His name is Nick Carter.”

All sadness left Nicoli’s face. He took a step toward me. “You took me for a fool, huh? Am I so stupid I cannot see through such a disguise? All right, Mr. Carter, you have bought it. But answer me one thing. Where is my old friend, Thomas Acasano?”

“Dead, I’m afraid,” I said.

“You bastard!” The gun jerked in his hand, a blast of fire spat out of the barrel, there was a loud BLAM sound through the air.

And even as it happened I couldn’t believe it. A powerful hand used all five fingers to grab the flesh at my side and pinch unmercifully. Then it was as if a hot poker had been pressed against me and somebody was slowly pushing it through me.

The force of the slug spun me around with such speed my arms went flailing out above my sides. My right hand struck Sheng on the chest, but the blow didn’t slow me. With my ankles twisted together I fell face forward against the fender of the Mercedes, then slowly slid down to curl by the wheel.

All this took fractions of a second. I was not dead, I had not even lost consciousness. My knees were up close to my chest, my hands pressed against my stomach.

The shot had taken a chunk of meat from my side. Already my shirt and jacket were soaked with blood.

Immediately after firing the shot, Nicoli was no longer interested in me. He swung the gun toward Sheng.

The pain was running deep into my guts. I could feel it moving up my spine. My back was pressing against the tire of the Mercedes. The Volkswagen bus had reached us now. It had almost stopped.

Slowly I moved my hand up my chest until I reached the opening of my sport coat. With my hand under the coat I could feel the hard warmth of the Luger. Keeping my eye on the group above me, I carefully pulled Wilhelmina from her holster and got her against my stomach. Both hands hid the gun from sight.

“I have been deceived by everyone,” Nicoli shouted. “I think that Nick Carter was right, Sheng. You want the list. You sent two of your men to that apartment to find it. Then you tried to bluff him out of it when you picked him up at the hotel.”

“That’s not true, Rozano.”

The Oriental with Sheng was partly hidden behind him. Slowly his hand began inching toward his chest. He moved a little more behind Sheng.

Nicoli was nodding. “Yes, it’s true. I can’t trust any of you! I will have to do it all now, starting from scratch.”

Another shot rang out, another blast of fire spat from a gun barrel. Nicoli dropped his gun and clutched his stomach. He doubled over with such force his rimless bifocals dropped from his head. The headlights from the bus made him look like he was on his knees supplicating Sheng. He lifted one knee to try to get on his feet, and he stayed like that looking up at Sheng.

Blood was oozing between his fingers and over the back of his hands. He clutched his stomach tighter.

The Oriental who had stepped from behind Sheng to fire the shot, moved two paces to the side, keeping his revolver aimed at Nicoli. When he reached the gangland leader’s fallen gun he kicked it aside. And by that time Sheng had his own gun in his hand. He aimed it at Nicoli’s face.

“You fool!” the oily voice shouted, only some of the smoothness had gone out of it. “You pompous, stupid bastard. Did you think I would actually let you take over anything? Did you? You were so inflated with your own ego you actually believed you could become a leader.”

“K-kill... you...” Nicoli mumbled.

“Idiot!” Sheng said sharply. “The only one you have killed is yourself. You could have had the world at your feet. Yes, I was willing to let you be the figurehead. Wealth would have been yours. More than even a moron like you could ever imagine.”

Nicoli wet his thin lips with his tongue. He opened his mouth to speak but no words came.

“But you would have been in charge of nothing. In name you would have been leader, but I would have guided the operations. That is how things will be anyway, only you will no longer be a part of it. I will use the list to find those agreeable to me, and establish them as figureheads. I hadn’t planned to kill you and take over just yet, but some things simply cannot be helped.”

“M-my organization... mine...”

“Your nothing,” Sheng snorted. “You were a puppet, you did as I arranged for you to do. Nothing has changed. Carter’s meddling has only postponed the inevitable. I will simply get somebody else.”

Nicoli pulled one hand away from his stomach to reach for Sheng. The effort rocked him forward to his hands and knees.

“Yes,” Sheng laughed. “That is where you belong, on all fours like the dog you are. Look at you, wallowing at my feet. You are fat and sloppy and life has been much too good for you.”

Nicoli made an effort to get back up. But his arms buckled and he fell to his elbows. There was now a pool of blood on the grass under his stomach.

Sheng moved the gun closer to the back of the balding head. “In time the Chinese People’s Republic will take over America. Yes, it may take years, but it will be much more simple to work from within than to fight a war. Your Cosa Nostra will answer to Peking. The profits will help build our armies and buy those in America who are for sale: senators, congressmen... there were quite a few from the way you talked.

“It will only take patience, something we Chinese are noted for. But when the time comes for Mao Tse-tung to go to America, the take-over will have been complete.”

Once again Nicoli tried to rise. He had lost a lot of blood. Sheng stood over him with the revolver aimed at his head, legs slightly apart, the hint of a smile now on his face. Nicoli got one hand in the grass and tried to push himself up.

“You Americans are such fools,” Sheng said. The revolver jerked in his hand. A spurt of fire spat like an electrical charge from the snout of the gun to Nicoli’s bald head. Then a chunk of his head seemed to wiggle back and forth. It was like a wind of hurricane force lifting a shingle off a roof. The chunk wiggled forward and back, then quickly peeled away leaving a wake of pink mist and scarlet pieces.

Nicoli straightened and rocked back on his knees. Then he pitched forward, his face slamming hard in the grass. The sound of the shot had been lost in the open flatness of grass. The acrid stench of burned gunpowder filled the air.

I could hear the loud mechanical sounds of the Volkswagen bus now as it came toward me. It was almost on top of me. Slowly, I started to straighten my legs.

The three Turks had poked their heads out of the plane to see what all the shooting was about. Tai Sheng waved them back.

“Hurry,” he said to them. “Get on with your business. Time is short.”

I couldn’t keep lying there. Tai Sheng was watching the Turks now, but in time he would turn back to me. Already his Oriental friend was showing renewed interest in me. With Wilhelmina in my hand, I straightened my legs and rocked forward to my feet.

The Oriental with Tai Sheng saw me first. He gave put a short cry and started clawing at his chest under his coat. Sheng was beginning to turn now. I had the Luger aimed straight at his ear. The driver of the Volkswagen was already applying his brakes.

There was something in Nicoli’s coat pocket that I wanted. The list. And I knew Sheng wanted it too. For me to get it, he would have to be killed.

I fired the Luger, feeling it jerk my hand up and back. But Sheng’s friend had jumped into the path of the bullet protecting him. The slug from Wilhelmina ripped through his cheek, showing a jagged circle of white meat. Then it quickly turned scarlet as his head jerked to the side and smashed into Sheng.

The two were tangled with each other for a few seconds. Once again I tried to get a clear shot at Sheng. The driver of the Volkswagen bus was beginning to get out. His frame looked like a shadow behind the headlights. But there was enough light to see he had a gun in his hand.

I fired once at him, and saw his head jerk against the back of the seat. He fell forward, struck the top of the door in a downward slant, then fell backward. I helped him out on the grass by grabbing his collar and pulling. Two shots rang out behind me. Sheng was firing from behind the cover of the Mercedes.

I fired once, making a star pattern in the back window of the black car. That was when I remembered.

I didn’t need the list. It was just something AXE had made up for me to hand to Nicoli. But I knew Sheng wanted it, and I wondered if he wanted it bad enough to come after me for it.

Nicoli’s body lay two feet from the door of the bus. Sheng was still circling behind the trunk of the Mercedes. I pushed myself out of the bus and fell to my knees beside Nicoli’s body. Sheng fired another shot just as I got the list. It was close enough for me to feel the wisp of air along the back of my neck. I fired one hasty shot over my shoulder as I scrambled back into the bus.

With darkness the air had turned crisp. The scent of kelp came at me from the Black Sea. The first thing I did was kill the lights of the bus, then I flipped a U-turn and started for the dock area.

It was all flashing back to me now. Killing the three Turks as they came out of the plane, Sheng firing at me as I drove away, the bleeding from my side making me lightheaded, the tool box in the back of the bus with the hand tools, thinking that Sheng would either come after me for the list or forget me and go ahead with the heroin delivery.

And I was remembering the visions still in my mind, of Quick Willie with his mangled nose broken more times than even he could remember, his curled-meat ears, puffy eyes, creased and wrinkled hands touching and pulling at Tanya’s flesh. As Nicoli had said, Quick Willie would want to have his fun first.

Then finally getting to the boat. Shutting the engine off and coasting to where the yacht was docked — a fifty-foot cabin-cruiser, water lapping gently against her sides, the cry of a sea gull far away, the warmth of lights shining through round portholes, stars glistening off the mirror of harbor water, the muffled sound of low voices coming from one of the boat cabins.

I had stumbled from the Volkswagen and fell to the asphalt fining the wooden dock. Then I had crawled, leaving a trail of smeared blood along the forward deck of the cabin cruiser. Port side, close to the bow, dizzy spells coming and going, finding the porthole close to the deck, clutching my side to try to stop some of the bleeding, Wilhelmina in my hand... growing heavy... looking through the porthole and seeing the white, fish-belly flesh of Quick Willie looking down on Tanya.

And... Tanya... on a bunk; the blond hair making a frame for her young, bruised, lovely face; arms tied above her head, wrists together; stockings, blouse, bra on the deck close to the bunk... Quick Willie grunting how good she’s going to be while he pulled off her skirt, then reached for the waistband of her panties.

Just... needed a little... rest. My mind left me and I drifted off. The few seconds’ rest had become minutes. My head had been lying against my arm. Now I raised it, and with it I lifted the business end of my stripped Luger. The cabin was blurry. I rubbed my eyes until I could see everything very clearly. I had come back.

Thirteen

The inside of the blurred cabin cleared slowly. I was lying flat on my stomach, looking through the porthole. The cabin-cruiser swayed gently at her moorings. Except for the soft lapping of water against her sides, there was nothing but silence. The crying sea gull had found its mate. I lifted the snout of Wilhelmina and pointed it at Quick Willie.

He had just pulled down Tanya’s skirt and was working it over her ankles. When he had it off, he let it drop to the deck. Then he straightened and looked down at her.

“You young ones sure look good,” he said, panting slightly. “I’m gonna really like this, baby. You’re put together real nice.”

Tanya remained silent. There was no fear in her eyes, and although her face was cut and bruised, you could still see the loveliness. She lay there, one knee raised slightly, arms high behind her head.

Quick Willie hooked his thumbs over the waistband of her bikini panties. Slowly he began pulling them down. He was bent over slightly, a leering, slobbering grin on his stupid face.

Tanya’s green eyes narrowed slightly. She let the raised knee drop, and even raised her fanny a little to help him pull the panties down.

His face was directly over her belly now and moving down as he inched the panties along. The top of the triangular, chestnut-velvet thatch was revealed. Willie kept slowly pulling down the panties.

With Tanya’s arms raised high, her breasts looked like soft overturned milk bowls topped with copper coins the size of half dollars. Remembering the taste of those breasts I could understand Willie’s eagerness. It made me want to kill him more.

When half of the chestnut thatch was showing, Quick Willie saw the end of a small hollow cylinder. It seemed to be rising as he pulled down on the bikini panties.

Willie frowned with his mouth open. “Now what da hell is dis?” he said in his nasal grunt.

He pulled down the bikinis farther and farther as more of the cylinder was revealed. His forehead was wrinkled in a frown of curiosity. When he got the panties down over Tanya’s thighs, the barrel of the small gun snapped straight up. There was a short, loud BANG, and the end of the barrel started sending out tiny wisps of smoke.

Quick Willie stiffened straight up. His creased, swollen-knuckled hands tried to reach toward his forehead but only got as far as his chest. He twisted sideways, the frown still on his face. Now he was facing my porthole. The frown left his face and was replaced with a look of utter disbelief. There was a tiny dime-size hole, just now beginning to bleed, in the middle of his forehead.

He saw me and his mouth dropped open wide. It was the last thing he ever saw. With his arms straight out he stumbled toward the porthole. His hands hit it first, but they had no strength. I flinched slightly as his face smashed against the porthole. For a split second it was pressed against the glass, eyes wide and staring, streams of blood flowing down both sides of the mangled nose. His forehead pressed against the porthole, smearing blood all over it. He was so close I could see the tiny red arteries in the whites of his eyes, a cobweb of maps now being filmed over with death.

Quick Willie fell back away from the porthole and crumbled to the deck like dried clay that had been hit with a hammer. Then all I could see was the smeared blood on the glass.

Tanya had also seen me.

Clutching the fingers of my left hand against my wound, I got to my hands and knees and worked my way along the smooth catwalk toward the main hatch. Going down the ladder was not difficult. I just grabbed the handrails and let my feet fall down in front of me. It was a five-foot slide. But I crumbled on the deck below like a pile of laundry. There was no strength in my legs: they couldn’t seem to hold me up.

I shuffled down the companionway in a sitting position making my agonizing way to the door of the main cabin. It was open.

“Nick?” Tanya called as I got in. “Nick, is it really you?”

Once inside the cabin, I shuffled to the foot of the bunk and pulled myself up enough to look at her face. I smiled at her.

Her lower lip sucked in between her teeth. Tears flooded her eyes. “I... gave it away, didn’t I? It was my fault they found our cover. If you’d had somebody more experienced, the mission would have been successful. How, Nick? Where did I slip?”

I pushed myself up until I was sitting on the edge of the bunk at her feet.

“Nick!” she cried. “You’re bleeding! They...”

“Hush,” I said in a hoarse voice. Wilhelmina was still in my right hand. I sniffled once and rubbed my right forearm across my nose. “Just... want to rest for awhile.” The lightheaded feeling was returning.

“Darling,” Tanya said, “if you can get my hands untied, I’ll be able to stop that bleeding. We have to stop it. Your whole side is covered with blood, even your left pants leg.”

My chin dropped to my chest. She was right. If she could get something around my waist maybe the dizziness would leave.

“Come on, darling,” she coaxed. “Try to work your way up to my wrists.”

I leaned to the side and felt my face fall against the smoothness of her belly. Then pushing with my hands I moved my head up the hollow of her rib cage, then over the soft mounds of her breasts. My lips were touching her throat. Then I slid my head over the top of her shoulder and felt the blanket on the bunk. The side of my neck was resting against her arm.

She moved her head and turned so our faces were less than an inch apart. Smiling at me she said, “A girl could get herself all worked up over that kind of maneuver.”

The dizziness returned and I had to rest. I felt her lips softly against my cheek, moving down, searching. Lifting my head slightly, I let my lips touch hers.

It was not a kiss of passion or of lust. She was telling me I could do it. The touching of our lips was soft, gentle, and filled with an emotion that went beyond the physical.

Groping with my hands, I heard a clanging as Wilhelmina fell to the deck. Then my hands were on her left arm. Slowly I slid them out, reaching above my own head, until I could feel the knot at her wrists. It seemed to take forever to get the damned thing untied.

But I knew I had done it when I felt her arms circle my neck. She pulled my face against the wishbone just below her throat and held me. At that moment I felt I could stay there forever.

“Darling,” she whispered. “Listen to me. I’m going to leave you for a little bit. Somewhere on this boat there has to be a first-aid kit. I’ll be back as soon as I find it. You just rest.”

The dizziness returned, and I was only aware of the coldness she had left in her absence. Besides the bunk, the cabin had a rolltop desk, a table with four chairs, a sliding closet door, and an overhead lamp that kept swaying back and forth slightly. A photo was on the wall opposite the bunk. It showed Konya, younger and with hair. This must have been his yacht, and the landing strip had to be on his land.

My eyes closed and I thought of Tai Sheng taking off in the Lear jet to deliver the shipment of heroin. He wouldn’t leave without the list. Would he? Suppose he had all the help he needed on his own personal list, the one showing all the Chinese agents in the Chinatowns of America. Then he wouldn’t need Nicoli’s list, or me. But I wanted him to come to me. Everyone was dead but him. He had to need that list.

I was being moved around but my eyes remained closed. I felt as though a cocoon was being pressed all around my waist. It hurt like hell, but after the sixth or seventh push I started getting used to it. A blanket passed behind my eyes and I left again. Then I felt my shoulder being shaken.

“Nick? Darling?” Tanya was saying. “The bleeding has stopped. I gave you a shot. Here, take these two pills.”

My waist was pulled tight with bandaging. When my eyes opened I blinked at the harsh light overhead. Tanya’s puffed, discolored eyes were smiling at me.

“How long have I been out?” I asked. I thought I heard a sound like a London police whistle. It wasn’t loud; in fact I could barely hear it. For some reason a name kept popping up in my mind. The Winged Tiger.

“No more than five minutes. Now take these pills.”

I popped them in my mouth and drank the glass of water she handed me. The dizziness and lightheaded feeling had left me. I was alert, but in pain. That sound was bothersome — a high, screaming sound far away.

“Nick?” Tanya asked. “What is it?”

Winking at her, I said, “Sweetie, get it out of your head that you blew this mission. Maybe we both goofed a little along the way, but our covers were blown by something unforeseen. Okay?”

She kissed my forehead. “Okay. But what was bothering you? You looked like you were reaching for something and couldn’t find it.”

“I still can’t find it. Sheng killed Nicoli. But before he did he said he had the list of the Winged Tiger, then he laughed out loud. I saw something that should have made that whole scene important to me. Maybe that stuff you gave me fouled up my thinking process.”

“It’s supposed to make you clearheaded,” Tanya protested.

As soon as I pushed myself to my feet a wave of nausea washed over me. I fell back against the bunk but remained on my feet. The feeling passed.

Then I snapped my fingers. “Of course! That’s it!”

Tanya stood in front of me searching my eyes. “What is it?” she asked.

“There is a list of Sheng’s contacts in the States. I knew it existed but I didn’t know where. Sure. He told me himself. The Winged Tiger. Now I know where it is.”

“Nick, listen!” Her head was cocked to one side. She had been getting dressed. Now she sat on the bunk, skirt hiked high, pulling on her stockings. We both heard a high, screaming sound.

“It’s Sheng,” I said. “He’s got the Lear jet running. Maybe I can stop him.”

She called to me when I reached the door. “Nick? Wait for me.”

“No, you stay here.”

“Oh, pooh!” Her lower lip stuck out, but by that time I had Wilhelmina in my hand and was out the door.

I took the ladder steps two at a time. The crisp night air hit my bare torso as soon as I reached the main deck. The blood at my feet was a reminder of how I’d gotten there.

It was too dark to make out the Volkswagen bus. I went over the side to a wooden finger of the dock. The scream of the jet was louder now. But why hadn’t he taken off? Why was he just sitting there letting the engines run?

As soon as I reached the asphalt I knew something was wrong. Two things happened at once. At that distance I could easily make out the Volkswagen bus against the glimmering harbor. There was a smaller, darker shadow behind it. The black Mercedes. Then I heard the smooth, purring chuckle of Tai Sheng behind me.

“Drop it, Carter,” he said in his oily voice. There was a kind of amusement in it. He had caught me in a stupid trap.

Wilhelmina thudded to the asphalt when I let her go.

“I thought the sound of the Lear jet would pull you off the boat. No, there is no one at the controls. It is still tied down and chocked, waiting for me.”

“Don’t let me keep you.”

“Oh, you won’t. I intend to go right after I kill you. But you see, Carter, you have something that belongs to me. Nicoli’s list. You could have saved us both a great deal of trouble if you had handed it over to me outside the hotel. I had a special small camera that I was going to use to photograph it, then I would have turned the list over to Nicoli.

“Don’t turn around, Carter. Do not even think of it. Is the list on you?”

“No.”

He sighed. “I can see you’re going to be difficult. I was hoping to just shoot you, then take the list. Carter, I am pressed for time. There are people waiting at the next meeting point for the heroin. And I am thirty minutes behind schedule. Did you hide it somewhere on the boat?”

My hands were hanging at my sides. “Maybe. What are you going to do with it?”

The oily smoothness of his voice was showing impatience. “Really, Carter, this is all academic. You’re going to be dead when I leave here anyway.”

“Let’s say I want to go down filled with knowledge. Since I’m dying for the list, don’t you think I have a right to know what it will be used for?”

“You have no rights. This is stupid, I don’t...” He paused for a few seconds. Then he said, “Turn around, Carter.”

I slowly turned so that I faced him. He must have been hiding under the bow. There was no doubt that he had a gun and that it was aimed at me. But I couldn’t see the expression on his face. It was merely a featureless shadow.

“You’re trying to buy time, Carter,” he said. “Why?”

If I couldn’t see his face, he couldn’t see mine. Keeping my arms close to my sides, I shrugged slightly. Hugo, my thin stiletto, fell to my hand.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Sheng.”

“Willie!” he shouted. “Willie, are you on board?”

We both listened to the lapping of water against the yacht and the faraway, high-pitched scream of the Lear jet.

“Aren’t you afraid you’ll run out of fuel running that jet all this time?” I asked.

“Don’t play games with me, Carter. Willie! Answer me!”

“He isn’t going to answer you, Sheng. He’s through answering anyone.”

“All right, you killed him. You saw what he did to the girl and you hit him. So much for Willie. Now where is that list?”

“If you kill me, you’ll never find it. And I’m not going to turn it over until I know what you’re using it for.” Out of the corner of my eye I saw Tanya crawling inch by inch along the forward deck of the yacht. When she reached the bow she would be directly over Sheng. I wondered what had kept her.

“All right,” Sheng said with another sigh of impatience. “Several copies will be made, and one copy will be sent to each branch headquarter station in America. Every name on that list will be followed and watched. Information about personal lives will be gathered and stored. Any method available will be used: wiretapping, spot checks on places visited, home searches while they’re away. You might say we will be acting a great deal like your Federal Government.”

“And what will be the purpose of all this?” I asked. Tanya had almost reached the forward edge of the bow. She was inching very slowly and carefully. She knew what Sheng could do, probably much better than I did.

“Information, Carter. Some of it will be used against those who decide a new power should not take over. Your agency should be delighted. We will make evidence available so that many underworld arrests can be made. Those who will go along with us will be amply rewarded. But first we will use the information to find a man with the right combination of stupidity, greed, and ambition. Another Rozano Nicoli will be hard to locate. He was truly perfect, and things would have gone well if you hadn’t meddled.”

Tanya was at the bow edge now. She was slowly getting herself turned sideways, fingers over the edge. I knew what kind of an attack she was going to launch — hands to the side, drop and push, lash out with both feet against Sheng’s head. She was almost ready. All I had to do was buy another minute or two.

“What about the list of the Winged Tiger?” I asked. “What are you going to use that for?”

His shoulders rose and fell in an impatient gesture. “Carter, you are beginning to bore me with these incessant questions. No more talk. Where is the list?”

“That is a little stupid, isn’t it, Sheng? I know what you have in mind. As soon as I tell you where it is, my life is worthless.”

“Is that what you are trying to buy? More time to five?”

“Maybe.”

He raised the gun. “Turn your pockets inside out.”

I did so, keeping Hugo cupped inside my palm. When my two front pants pockets were out and down I got a more comfortable grip on the stiletto. Tanya was ready to make her jump now. It had to be soon, the first was in my back pocket, and I knew what Sheng would ask next.

“All right,” he said. “Now turn around and pull your back pockets inside out. You didn’t have that much time to hide the thing. It should be easy to find if you don’t have it on you.”

I stood still without moving.

“I will shoot your kneecaps first, then both elbows, then the shoulders. Do as I say.” He took a step forward and leaned over a little, looking at me as though he had just seen me for the first time. “Wait a minute,” he whispered. “You’re not buying time for yourself. There’s bandaging around your waist. How did... Who...”

That’s when Tanya jumped. Her legs came out and down followed by the rest of her. The flight was so short I almost missed it in the darkness. She was like a missile, hitting with feet first, arms and hands a trailing mist above her.

But Sheng was not entirely unprepared. As soon as he saw my bandage, he knew that Tanya had not been killed, that she was alive and listening to our conversation. At that moment he had taken a step backward, which threw off her timing; he was raising the gun toward her as he turned away from me.

That was when I started moving. Hugo was in my hand now, at waist level. Sheng was six or seven steps away from me. I lowered my head and started after him, Hugo in front of me.

Tanya’s timing had been thrown, but not completely. Her right heel caught Sheng on the side of the neck, snapping his head to the side. He didn’t quite get the gun aimed at her. But then the rest of her plowed into him.

For an instant she was tangled around his head and shoulders. He hadn’t dropped the gun yet, but it waved around frantically while he tried to get her off.

I was almost on him. The entire scene seemed to take on a slow-motion pace, although I knew only split seconds were passing. I doubted if two seconds had passed from the time Tanya made her leap until now, yet it all seemed as if it were taking me forever getting to him.

He was going down with Tanya still all over him. Now he was four steps away, then three. When his back hit the asphalt he forced himself over, legs going high toward his head. His left knee hit Tanya on the side of the head which was enough to send her up and behind him. She struck the asphalt and started rolling.

Sheng went completely over on his hands and knees. He got his right foot under him ready to stand, and raised the gun toward me.

But by that time I had reached him. I had switched Hugo to my right hand and now had it pushed ahead of me. With my left I knocked his gun arm aside and stabbed down, putting all my weight behind it.

He saw it coming and, grabbing for my wrist, fell to his right. The point of the stiletto had been aimed at his throat. By leaning away he caught it in the shoulder.

I could feel it going in. The point passed through the cloth of his coat easily, paused for a microsecond when it began to pierce the skin, then slid in with all my weight behind it. Sheng’s shoulder went back as he twisted to the side.

He let out a howl of pain and grabbed my wrist. Now he was trying to bring the gun back around. I tried to pull the stiletto back out to get another plunge at him, but he held my wrist tight.

We were close to each other. I could see the pain in his eyes, the lock of straight black hair over his forehead, the loosened tie, blood starting to spurt from the wound soaking the beautifully tailored jacket.

With his free hand he struck me in the wounded side.

I let out a grunt as pain washed completely over me. It was like liquid poured from a bucket. Straight to the bone marrow it went, hurting everything along the way.

There were several things I could still see. I was going down, doubled to my left. Sheng was now swinging the gun around toward my head. Somehow the stiletto had been pulled from his shoulder. It was still in my hand. The pain dulled my brain, slowed my reflexes to elephantlike movements.

Sheng was on his feet. Tanya lay apart from us, unmoving. I was sitting with my hand pressed against my bleeding side. Then I got both feet under me as I saw his gun swing at my face. Forgetting the pain, I put both arms in front of me and dove.

It was a flying tackle hitting him just above the knees, the kind that make pro quarterbacks climb stairs very slowly and limp for the first hour after rising. When I was sure my shoulders had struck him, I gathered his calves, ankles, and feet into my chest and kept driving.

He couldn’t step anywhere. As he fell back his arms went up and back to try to cushion his fall. But he hit hard anyway. Then he started pulling his legs. It wasn’t until I started crawling over him toward his face that I realized he had lost the gun in his fall. I just caught a glimpse of it making one last bounce on the wooden dock, then splashing into the harbor.

My right hand, with the stiletto in it, went high. But he grabbed it before I could bring it down into his stomach. We stayed like that, both straining. I had all my strength behind Hugo, pressing it down at him. All his strength was against my wrist, trying to keep the point of the stiletto away.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Tanya begin to stir. The second it took to look at her was a mistake. Sheng raised a knee hard into my back. I cried out and doubled backward. That’s when he slapped the stiletto out of my hand. Too late, I grabbed toward it and watched it go skittering along the asphalt.

With his shoulder bleeding his one hand seemed useless. The other went for my throat with a strength I hadn’t thought he possessed. We rolled over and over. I was trying to reach for his eyes. He tried to knee me in the groin but I managed to twist away.

Then we were on the slick wood, close to the water’s edge, both grunting and panting. Neither of us spoke now. We were something less than human, as basic as time itself.

My hand was on his cheek, still going for the eyes. I realized then that he was patting my back pocket. My fist went back and smashed him against the nose. Again I struck him, and each time he let out a grunt of pain.

Blood was pouring from his nose. I raised up and smashed his mouth this time. Then I reached behind me and tried to slap his hand away from my pocket. It went away all right. It struck hard into my open wound.

Again a wave of nausea washed over me. All strength left my arms. Vaguely I felt his hand go in the pocket and pull out the list.

I had to stop him. If he got away, everything he had planned would work. The assignment would have been a failure. Gritting my teeth, I forced strength back into my body.

He was trying to push away from me. I got hold of a coat sleeve, then a pants leg. The leg jerked free, then turned back toward me. It went back and swiftly came forward again. The toe of Sheng’s shoe connected with the bleeding bandage on my side.

Blackness swept in like a tide of ink. I rolled over twice, thinking he was going to keep trying. All the things you are supposed to do to keep from going out passed through my mind. I fought it with everything in me. Once that plane took off with Sheng inside, he would be lost forever.

Sucking in and blowing out, I managed to get rid of enough blackness to open my eyes. Sheng was five feet from me, one arm hanging useless at his side, blood dripping from his fingers.

He had stopped at the stiletto. Pausing slightly, he looked down at it, then at me. The list was in his good hand, working back and forth between his fingers.

Escape must have been more important, because he left the stiletto where it was and staggered toward the Mercedes. His footsteps echoed on the asphalt to the background sound of the screaming Lear jet.

By the time I was sitting, Tanya had gotten to her hands and knees. Wilhelmina was too far away. The driver’s door of the Mercedes opened.

When I got to my knees, Tanya was standing and coming to me. The Mercedes’s door slammed shut. It was a solid CLUNK sound like the closing of a safe. Immediately there was a whir of starter motor, then the purr of the big V8. Tires chirped on the asphalt as Sheng made a quick U and faded from sight.

I got to my feet and weaved back and forth.

“Oh, Nick!” Tanya cried when she reached me. “It’s bleeding again. That bandage is soaked through.”

I pushed away from her and scooped up the stiletto, then staggered on to Wilhelmina. As I picked up the gun I stuck Hugo back in his sheath. Bare-chested, bandage soaked with blood, holster under the armpit, sheath on the arm. It wasn’t enough.

“Nick, what are you doing?” Tanya asked.

“Got to stop him.”

“But you’re bleeding. Let me stop it, then we can...”

“No!” I took a deep breath.

Mind over matter. The mystical, unknown powers of the East. Yoga. Closing my eyes, I called on everything within me. Just as yoga had helped me relax countless times, I now called on it for strength. Everything I had ever been taught was now summoned. I wanted my mind cleared of all pain. There was only one thing to concentrate on: stopping Sheng and that Lear jet. When I opened my eyes again, it was done — or done enough to get me moving.

“I’m coming with you.” Tanya fell in step.

“No.” I had started for the Volkswagen bus. And I was moving swiftly. Over my shoulder I said, “That cabin cruiser must have some kind of ship-to-shore radio. Find it and call Hawk. Tell him where we are.”

It was a fool’s kind of calmness which overtook me, an insane quiet which had nothing to do with reality. I knew it. Yet the only thought running through my mind was, “The sign of the Winged Tiger... the sign of the Winged Tiger.” Sheng had a list our Government needed. I had to get it. And it was not the list he had taken from me — that one we didn’t care about — it was the one he had hidden: the sign of the Winged Tiger.

Tanya disappeared through the hatch as I got the bus started and moved in a U. Over the mechanical clacking of the air-cooled, four-cylinder engine, I heard the scream of the Lear jet rise in pitch and volume.

I left the lights off as I drove along the asphalt. A stripped Luger, a stiletto, a gas bomb, and an agent with a lot of lost blood were no match for a Lear jet. But I had an idea I thought might work.

The flashing red-and-green running lights were far ahead of me now. I could see them clearly. The jet was rolling. Coming from the opposite end of the grassy field.

The asphalt road veered to the left at nine o’clock. The rolling jet was at twelve. I cut the wheel of the bus and left the road for the bouncing ankle-high grass, at an angle of about two o’clock.

Flames from the jets extended far behind the plane, looking like Fourth of July fireworks in the night. It was really moving now. I pushed the bus to its limit in third gear, then shifted to fourth.

From the angle I was driving, the jet was coming at ten o’clock while I was heading at twelve. The ground was much smoother than I thought it would be. My speedometer was hovering between fifty and sixty. The scream of the jet engines was now a thunderous roar. The running lights bounced as the plane rolled faster and faster.

It would take to the air soon. Blades of grass became a blur of darkness. My eyes never left the rolling plane. The distance between us was quickly gobbled up as the two rolling masses of metal headed on a collision course.

Vaguely I wondered if he had seen me. It didn’t matter. Both of us had passed the point of no return now. There was nothing he could do with that plane but ride. He hadn’t made enough speed to lift off, he couldn’t brake it to a halt, and he couldn’t turn without flipping. It was the same with me.

Reaching down behind the seat, I felt around the cold metal objects until I found the heavy mallet. I pulled it up and put it in my lap.

The plane was getting close now, the roar of the engines so loud they deafened, wheels a spinning mass of black, cockpit lit just enough so I could see him. His hair was still mussed slightly. The oxygen mask was loose, dangling to his left. He was an expert pilot, had been awarded Red China’s highest medal.

There might not be enough time. I had to hurry. The distance was being eaten up too fast. I picked up the mallet and let the weight of it fall to the floorboard. The bus slowed slightly as I moved my foot from the gas pedal and placed the mallet on it. For an instant I had a feeling of utter smallness, something like what the man on a day sailer must feel as he is passed by an ocean finer.

My hand was on the doorlatch. The bus was now rolling at a steady fifty. But the jet had picked up a lot of speed. It took a great deal of effort to get the door open against the rushing wind. And I could hear the low roar of both engines at full throttle. I turned the wheel to the left slightly. Now the bus was heading directly for the jet. I pushed the door all the way open and jumped.

At first there was the sensation of flight, the timeless twilight area when you are not touching anything on this earth. Then, looking down, the ground was moving much too fast. I was going to get hurt.

I had thought about hitting the ground running. That was why my foot struck first. But the force of speed sent my head down and my other leg up toward my back. I no longer had control of where I was going. All I could do was relax my body.

My head hit, then my back, then I was in the air again. This time I came down on my shoulder and kept bouncing and rolling while I gritted my teeth against the pain.

Almost as quickly as I’d started, I stopped. Couldn’t catch my breath, wind knocked out of me, blind for an instant. There was a lot of orange light and heat.

I felt it rather than saw it because I had only been able to catch glimpses of what had happened as I bounced and rolled. Maybe that was what helped me relax, concentrating on what was happening to the plane.

Sheng had seen the bus at the last minute. He had hit the port brake, trying to turn slightly out of the way. The Lear jet tipped up on its right wheel, dipping the right wing low. It was that wingtip the bus struck. With a screeching grind of breaking metal the wing bent and broke. By that time the nose of the jet was aimed toward the ground behind the bus and the tail was coming up.

With engines still roaring, the plane did one cartwheel, broken right wing to nose to left wing to tail. At that point Sheng cut the power.

For an instant the plane stood poised on its tail, simply flowing down the grassy strip with the tail less than a foot off the ground, blowing grass to the sides like the bow of a ship parting water.

When it came down it was upside down. The cockpit area slammed hard as the whole plane started spinning and twirling, making that screeching metal grinding sound.

And then it blew.

The wing tanks blew toward the fuselage, which came apart like a dropped puzzle. Orange and red balls of flame boiled up with roaring explosions. The sky was brightened as flames belched straight up and out in all directions.

Pieces landed less than twenty feet away from me. A wing section went high and landed close to where I had jumped. The entire tail section was blasted free from the fuselage. It went up like a well-kicked football and ripped apart far to my left.

The orange flaming light showed the Volkswagen bus rolling. It didn’t explode. After the wing struck, it reared on its back wheels like a wild stallion, then pitched forward, flipped to its side, and rolled four times before it came to a halt upside down.

The air was filled with the smells of melting aluminum and magnesium, and burning rubber and plastic. There was no odor of Sheng’s burning flesh; it was too weak beside the other flaming elements. As the cockpit melted and flowed, scarring the grass, I saw what might have been his body, or what might have been a charred, crooked log, or a shriveled black cow. A crusty stub still had hold of the wheel. Now and then flames licked at it, but not often, because it was already burned through.

Orange light also revealed Tanya running across the grass toward me. The calmness was still there. I knew what I had to do now. She came with her skirt riding high, fine legs pumping that soft flesh along. Something dangled from her shoulder by a strap.

I had forgotten what it felt like not to hurt. Besides the wounded side, which was the deepest of pains, I was a mass of bruises. By some lucky twist of fate no bones had been broken, at least none that I could tell. There was pain low on my chest when I took a breath, but it was no worse or better than any of the others.

Tanya reached me all out of breath. I had managed to push myself to my feet. Standing there with the whole world lit by wavy orange and red flames, I waited for Tanya to get to me.

For a long time we stood in the orange light, just holding each other. Her fragile body shook with sobs. For some reason I was smiling.

Then she pushed away from me and looked at my face. “D-did we lose?” she asked. “I know he’s dead... but the assignment... did we... fail?”

I kissed her forehead. “We’ll see. I’ve got a hunch. If I’m right, we were successful.”

Then she grabbed me again, and the pain almost made me pass out. “Oh, Nick,” she cried. “When I saw that bus rolling and rolling and I thought you were inside...”

“Shh. It’s all right. What have you got in the little case?”

“First-aid kit. I called Mr. Hawk. He’s on the way. Nick? Where are you going?”

“I was hobbling toward the overturned bus.” She came trotting beside me. “I want to have a look at the Winged Tiger,” I said.

The plane was still burning but the flames had diminished quite a bit. I felt the heat as I circled it to get to the bus. Metal was flowing from it like silver molten lava, oozing from cracks and open cavities.

When I reached the bus I got the big side door open. The inside smelled strongly of raw gas. Tanya waited outside while I rummaged through the scattered tools. The box had been kicked around quite a bit and a couple of wrenches had smashed through windows. Using the waving flames for light, I found two screwdrivers, a Phillips and a straight slot. I wasn’t sure what kind of screw heads I’d be removing.

As I walked away from the bus, Tanya walked dutifully and silently beside me. She didn’t ask questions; she knew if she remained silent and watched, all the answers would be there. As we walked toward where I had seen the tail section land, I put my arm around her shoulders. She pressed against me, lightly brushing me a little with each step.

There was a loud explosion behind us that sent another cloud of flame boiling up.

Tanya looked back over her shoulder. “What do you think that was?”

“Oxygen bottles probably. There it is, over to the right.”

The tail section of the Lear jet had broken again and was resting in grass about a foot high. I passed over the pieces ripped from the main and stopped when I found the main piece.

“The Winged Tiger,” I said.

Kneeling with Tanya beside me, I wiped grass stains and dirt and black soot from the smooth surface. There was the painted face and body of a winged tiger. The flush screwheads held a panel about eight inches square. I tossed the straight-slot screwdriver aside and used the Phillips. In less than five minutes I had the panel free and hanging by its small chain.

“What’s in there?” Tanya asked as I felt around inside the cavity.

“This.” It was a small packet of shiny aluminum foil about four inches by two. Very carefully I began unwrapping the foil. There were several sheets of folded paper inside clipped together.

Tanya was looking over my arm. “Nick,” she said. “That’s it, isn’t it?”

I nodded handing her the clipped papers. “The list of the Winged Tiger. All of Sheng’s Communist contacts in America.” The words came automatically because I had discovered another piece of paper wrapped in the foil.

“What are you grinning about?” Tanya asked.

“We have a bonus, something I didn’t expect. This list contains the names and locations of every contact from Palermo to Saigon where the heroin moves.” I handed it to her, then kissed the tip of her nose. “Look it over, love. Names, places, and dates of previous deliveries.”

“Nick, then...”

My grin turned to a chuckle that hurt. “Yes, Tanya, you might say that our mission was successful.”

Fourteen

Two days later I was in Washington, D.C., in Hawk’s office, still wrapped like a cocoon. The small office smelled of stale cigar smoke, although he did not have a cigar now. He sat behind his desk straight across from me. His leathery, creased face wore its constant frown of concern but his eyes were amused.

“The Attorney General has instructed me to place a commendation in your record, Carter.” He smiled at some personal joke. “If we can find room for it.”

“What about Tanya?” I asked.

Hawk leaned back in his chair and folded his hands across his flat stomach.

“I’ll see that a letter of commendation is placed in her record,” he said.

When he pulled one of his cigars from his coat pocket, I took out a gold-tipped cigarette. We lit up together with my lighter.

“How is the side?” he asked in a softened voice.

“A little painful but not too bad.”

The final tally had been assorted lacerations and bruises, three ribs with hairline cracks, and that chunk of flesh out of my side. It was enough to keep me in a hospital one day, chomping at the bit to get out.

Hawk pulled the cigar from between his teeth and studied it. “Well, at least one source of heroin moving into Saigon has been stopped.”

I nodded. “Did you ever find out who put those nineteen slugs into Carlo Gaddino?”

“Yes, the same two you caught searching the apartment. They were operating under Sheng’s orders, of course. Seems they got into Gaddino’s place by pretending to be picking up the laundry. Once they were inside, they went directly to the sauna, opened the door, and let him have it with silenced machine pistols — .38s. Nineteen times. Then they picked up the laundry and left.”

“Afterwards I guess they got orders from Sheng to get the list from Acasano.”

“Exactly. And they were to kill Acasano silently, with a dagger.”

“So what happens with the list of the Winged Tiger?”

“It is already happening, Carter. At this moment all the Communists are being rounded up. We’ve discovered that most of them are in this country illegally, so they will be deported back to China.”

I leaned forward and mashed out my cigarette. “Sir, what is going to happen with La Cosa Nostra? With Nicoli and Acasano and Sheng all dead, who will be the new boss of the underworld?”

Hawk shrugged, then mashed his cigar in the ash tray. “They’ll probably find somebody no one has heard of. I’m sure the underworld will continue to function and to flourish. Emergency measures are probably already being taken.”

A picture of Lake Tahoe and a lakeside cabin came to my mind. “What about the real Sandee Catron? You don’t have anything to hold her on, do you?”

“No, we don’t. She is here in Washington, you know. After talking with her for a long time we’ve convinced her that perhaps she would find a rewarding career working for us.”

I leaned forward. “What?”

But Hawk did not even blink. “She has agreed to stay close to Acasano’s friends and to inform us of their activities. Who knows? Perhaps someday the newly elected boss of the American underworld will be an undercover agent working for the Government.”

He stood and leaned forward with his palms flat on the desk. “You have a week off, Carter. Two if you want it. Any plans?”

“Well,” I said standing. “This business about keeping the real Sandee Catron in a cabin has given me ideas. I keep thinking about those mountains north of Flagstaff, a cabin high enough so snow is still all around it, sitting in front of a rock hearth, maybe doing a little fishing during the day, and at night...”

The people in the small village three miles from the cabin said it was very late in the season for snow to be falling. Tanya told me the snowflakes were a welcoming committee.

We found a sleigh for rent with a bay mare to pull it. And when we had loaded it with groceries and supplies, we climbed under the thick quilt and pointed the mare toward our cabin. Tanya snuggled close to me.

The sleigh had a bell on it that brought people out of every cabin we passed. They stood on their porches and waved as we went by.

A scent of pine filled the air. And the trees stood like crowds of tall thin soldiers lining our path. A creek twisted and curved about four feet from the narrow road we were on.

“Be good fishing,” I commented.

“If you have time.”

I looked down at the girl sitting next to me, bundled with a parka, a hint of discolor around her green eyes, the tip of her upturned nose red with the cold. And the look she gave me was a woman’s look, not that of a girl.

By the time we got the sleigh unloaded and the mare taken care of, it was dark. We ate, cleaned up the dishes, and got a fire going in the fireplace.

The cabin was not luxurious. It had three basic rooms. The large living room had the kitchen and dining table at one end and the fireplace at the other. There were two doors besides the front and back leading outside, one to the bathroom and the other to the bedroom. All the furniture had been handmade of pine. There was a large bearskin rug in front of the fireplace.

As I sat in front of the fire smoking, I noticed that the lanterns in the living room were being put out. Tanya had been in the bathroom. When the only light came from the flickering flames of the fireplace, I felt her close to me.

Her hand touched the back of my neck lightly, then slid over my shoulder and down my arm to my hand. She had been standing behind me. Now she came around and knelt in front of me.

She was wearing a knitted sweater that buttoned down the front and a short skater’s skirt. As I started unbuttoning the sweater I noticed that she had nothing under it.

“Ban the bra,” I whispered.

“Right on.” She leaned back on the bearskin rug, her breasts looking smooth and flushed in the firelight.

I knelt beside her. My fingers found the zipper and button on the side of her skirt.

“You aren’t going to have much time for fishing, Nick, darling,” she said in a husky voice.

“What do you think I’m doing now?”

As I tugged down on the skirt, she raised herself so I could get it down the length of her well-shaped legs. She was wearing baby-blue bikini panties with white lace borders. I was smiling as my thumbs hooked around the waistband.

Firelight caressed her smooth skin like dancing fingers. She was very young and very lovely. I kissed the firm flatness of her belly as I pulled the panties down. Then I rose up in surprise.

The tiny barrel of the gun snapped out to point straight up at me. There was a smile on Tanya’s lips. There was a loud click, but no bullet came. A small flag popped out of the gun barrel.

It had two words on it: LOVE ME.

Content

Nick Carter
The Mark of Cosa Nostra

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Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen