Macao km031, p.6
Macao (KM031), page 6
part #31 of Killmaster Series
Nick gave him a hard stare. “Quern?”
The man took a wallet from his hip pocket. He flipped it to show Nick an official card in a glassine case. “I am a representative of the Portuguese Government, fully accredited. You are permitted to check with my Embassy, senhor, if you desire. But I must speak with the Princess at once. I insist!”
Nick smiled at him. “Okay.” I will ask the lady if she wants to talk to you. Go back and sit on your bench. If she says yes I’ll let you know. Okay?”
The man frowned and shook his head. “Nao—nao! That will not do at all. The Princess will not consent to see me. She is very ill, senhor, she is not herself. I, my Government, wish to take care of her. So—you will open the door at once!”
“I don’t think I will,” said Nick. “Of course you can always call the police.”
The man shook his head. “Nao! The police are not wanted.”
Killmaster nodded. “I would have bet on it So take off, Buster. You’re wasting your time. Va embora!” It was the Portuguese equivalent of get lost
The thin man shrugged. He gave Nick a final piercing glance from the muddy brown eyes, then turned and went I down the steps. The AXEman watched as he retraced his steps to the bench, picked up his paper again, and sat down to read. So that was pretty much that. Stubborn bastard!
Nick went up the stairs to the first landing, after first unlocking the door. There were a couple of dozen flats in this building and he doubted the Portuguese would dare attract attention by canvassing them all. The girl was secure for the moment.
The girl? She wasn’t on the first landing, though he caught the faint waft of her perfume. Nick cursed. If the little bitch had taken another runout on him—
He went up another flight of stairs to his flat. She was there, on the sofa, sprawling on her back and showing a lot of leg and bloody stocking. She still wore the green mini-dress, now considerably the worse for wear. Her gamin hair was mussed and she had dark circles under her green eyes.
She had been crying recently. As Nick entered and locked the door behind him she tried to tug down her skirt. Her hands were trembling badly.
Yet there was hauteur in the look she gave him, and her voice did not quaver when she said: “Who are you? What are you doing here? And how dare you lock the door!”
Nick Carter stared at her. He knew his jaw was drooping. Before he could answer the phone rang. The double shrill of the British phone started a gong in his brain—only two people beside himself knew this number. The American Ambassador to the Court of St. James and David Hawk.
Nick checked the door again. He put on the chain and slid the bolt. As he went to the phone he told the girl, “Don’t get any silly ideas about running away. I’ll have you before you can get the chain off.”
She closed her eyes and ignored him. Nick picked up the impatient instrument and said guardedly, “Yes?”
“This is the house dick,” said a familiar voice. “Get that woman out of your room.”
Killmaster narrowed his eyes. He was beyond surprise now. One thing he knew—when David Hawk, his boss, turned comedian, trouble was on the way.
He played along. “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. Right away, sir. Will there be anthing else, sir?”
“There sure as hell will be,” said Hawk gruffly. “Now listen well and answer briefly, yes or no. This is code EOW!”
End Of World. It was AXE’s highest priority, most urgent, top secret code. Killmaster tensed, every superbly conditioned reflex on the alert. “Yes, sir. I understand.”
“You have the Princess Morgan da Gama with you right now?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Fine. You are to hold on to her at all costs. I repeat, all costs!”
“Understood.”
“Is anyone else taking an interest in her? Right now?”
“Yes, sir. He’s across the street in a park. I just had a little run-in with him. Says he’s a representative of the Portuguese Government. Maybe he is. He looks like he could be.”
Hawk swore, using words that Nick had not thought the old man knew.
Hawk said: “He is, very likely. He’s probably Major Carlos Oliveira of Portuguese Intelligence. Counter-intelligence, really. Damn and blast it! Is he alone?”
“I think so, so far. I think the guy is in sort of a bind—he can’t break off surveillance long enough to get to a phone. I know how he feels. But he’ll think of something.”
“Good,” said Hawk. “A break for us. Can you get the girl out the back way without being spotted?”
“I can try.”
“Make it fast, then. I’m at London Airport now. I’ll meet you in an hour at the Cock and Bull. Understood?”
“Under—”
There was a series of rapid backfires from the street below. Backfires? The explosions were too close together, too stuttery, to be backfires.
Nick told his boss, “Hold on a minute, sir.”
He went to the window and peered out. The big black sedan, a Bentley, was just pulling away. The nanny was cowering over her pram, screaming silently through fingers covering her mouth. The tall skinny man lay on the pavement beside the green bench. One leg was still twitching and even at this distance Nick could see the dark stains beginning to grow beneath the lank figure. He went back to the phone.
“It’s all academic now, sir. Someone just gunned our boy down. Black Bentley. Black people, too. I know who. I had trouble with them earlier this morning.”
He expected more, but all Hawk said was: “You do get around, don’t you son! All right. It’s a break. Get the hell out of there, fast. Be careful. Break trail a couple of times. You and the girl must not, repeat must not, be followed to the Cock and Bull. The whole mission depends on it. Now get cracking!” Hawk hung up.
Mission? What mission? Nick put down the phone and stared at the prone figure on the sofa. She had crossed her forearms over her face and now and then she groaned softly. The green skirt had rucked up to show the lower edges of white panties.
Mission! Killmaster sighed and swore a little. There went his lovely freelance adventure, sans Hawk and official killing. He was right back in the rut. He could already feel the harness beginning to bind. But how? Who, why, where, when and what? This was the screwiest mess he had ever stepped into.
Killmaster went to the sofa, looking very grim. His not to reason why—his just to do what Ol’ Massa Hawk say and try to stay alive whilst doing it.
He bent to shake her violently. She moaned and looked at him with those green eyes, red-streaked now. “Come on,” said Nick, putting steel in his voice. “Snap out of it, Princess. We move again. Now. Fast. Depressa—mais depressa, as you Portuguese always say. In plain Yank—shake those beautiful legs!”
She scowled and pulled away from him. “I must sleep. I am exhausted. I am also sick, very sick.”
He had to admit that she looked sick. She had a greenish pallor and what little makeup she wore was smeared. The smudges beneath her eyes had become black bruises. Nevertheless she managed a haughty stare and repeated her earlier query.
“Who are you? Have we met before?”
She was either crazy or still so hungover and/or drugged that she really didn’t know what was going on. Nick pleaded with God to give him patience. He grabbed her by a slim arm, not gently, and dragged her to the bay window.
“Take a good look,” he told her brutally. “It’s your old buddy—the guy who tried to nab you a few minutes ago. Morto—muito morto! You want that to happen to you?”
He watched her closely as she stared down at the little crowd in the park. There was a bobby there now, and a dozen onlookers, and a pair of feet in black socks and brown leather sandals sprawled in the laxness of death.
She was trembling, fine little tremors that tore at the slim beautiful body, but Nick could not read fear on her face. She said—words that seemed very strange to him at the time— “I have prayed for it many times. A consummation devoutly to be desired—yet it happens to him and not to me. There is no justice and no pity in the world.”
She turned away from the window, looking at Nick with bloodshot green eyes that did not really see him. She said: “I must have a drink. I’m getting the shakes very badly. I simply must have a drink.”
He started to refuse, then decided to humor her. It was plain that she was on the verge of collapse. That wouldn’t do. They had to travel.
Nick handed her the bottle of Scotch. She uncorked it and drank from the bottle, unashamed, gurgling the stuff down like any Bowery wino. When she put the bottle down she reached for the white purse lying on the floor beside the sofa. Nick got to it first.
“I’ll just have a look,” he told her with a hard smile. “See if you’ve restocked your arsenal.”
She attempted a smile. Her lipstick was badly smeared and the effect was a little grotesque.
“It was you took my pistol, then? And the card?”
He nodded. “You were in pretty bad shape. I was afraid you might hurt yourself.”
She ignored that. She extended her hand. “It’s the pills I want. Only the pills. I need them. Please?”
Nick tossed her the vial of pills. “Bennies? Amphetamine?”
A nod. “Yes. I must have them. My nerves are in very bad shape.”
“I can believe that,” he said. He pulled a pair of white gloves from the purse. He had noticed them before. But then they had been clean, pristinely white. Now both of them bore bloodstains. The AXEman glanced at her leg, at the torn stocking and blood on her knee. No. The gloves had been in her purse all the while.
She was watching him now, aware that he had seen the bloodstains on the gloves. The green eyes had taken on a wary look.
“How,” Nick asked, “is every little thing at fourteen Half Crescent Mews?”
The Princess dropped the vial of pills. One hand went to her throat, the other to her breasts. Her red mouth worked and she stared at him with a strange mixture of terror and defiance. At last she said, “Who are you?”
Nick tossed the purse at her. “Your needle is stuck, Princess. You keep asking the same questions.”
He watched her struggle, appreciated the enormous effort she made to stop shaking, pull herself together, erase the fear and doubt and face him with some degree of composure. He had to give her A for effort. Whatever she was, she was a lady and a Princess. He had been right about that.
Her voice was under control when she asked, “Are you a policeman of some sort? Am I under arrest?”
Killmaster lied. It was a long way to the Cock and Bull, where he was to meet Hawk, and he needed her cooperation to get her there. It would save trouble all around.
He said: “Not exactly a policeman. I do have an interest in you. Unofficially as of now. I think you’re in bad trouble. I might be able to help you. We’ll know more about that later, when I’ve taken you to see someone.”
“See who?” Her tone was stronger. She was beginning to firm up now. He could see the booze and the pills working.
Nick smiled his most ingratiating smile. What Hawk sometimes alluded to as his “lay ‘em in the aisles” smile. “I can’t tell you that,” he said. “But he isn’t a cop, either. He might be able to help you, too. He’ll want to help you.”
Forgive him for that one. Hawk would help all right—if there were anything in it for Hawk, and AXE. Meaning the same thing.
The girl turned snappish. “Don’t try to treat me like a child,” she said. “I may be drunk and a fool, but I’m not a child.” She reached for the bottle again.
He took the bottle away from her. “No more booze for now. Are you coming with me or not?” He didn’t want to have to handcuff her and drag her along.
She did not look at him. Her eyes, longing, were on the bottle. She curled her long legs beneath her on the sofa, making no attempt to pull her skirt down. Here came the sex bit. Anything for a drink—even herself.
Her smile was tentative. “Did we by any chance sleep together last night? I have these complete blackouts, you see. I never remember anything.”
She was going to be difficult. So would Hawk be, a lot more so, if this deal got fouled up again. EOW code meant just that—whatever this mess was, and whatever part the Princess da Gama was playing, it was deadly serious. Life and death.
Nick walked to the phone and picked it up. He was bluffing, but she could not know that. He made his voice rough, mean. And vulgar.
“Okay, Princess, we’ll just cut out the horseshit now. But I’ll do you a favor—I won’t call the police. I’ll call the Portuguese Embassy and have them pick you up. You’re going to need help and that’s what an Embassy is for.”
He started to dial, any digits at all, watching her with narrowed eyes.
Her face crumpled. She slumped and began to cry.
“No—no! I’ll go with you. I—I’ll do anthing you say. But don’t turn me over to the Portuguese. They—they want to put me in an insane asylum.”
“That figures,” said Killmaster cruelly. He nodded toward the bathroom. “I’ll give you five minutes in there. Then we travel.”
Chapter 5
THE COCK AND BULL INN stands in an ancient cobbled courtyard that was, in early medieval times, a site of hangings and beheadings. The Inn itself was built in Christopher Marlowe’s time, and there are scholars who hold that it was here that Marlowe was murdered. Today the Cock and Bull is not a busy house, though it has its quota of regulars; it stands in semi-isolation, set well back from the East India Dock Road and near the Isle of Dogs, an anachronism of rosy brick and half-timbering submerged in the busy hurry and scurry of modern traffic and shipping.
Very few people know of the sub-basements and secret rooms that lie beneath the Cock and Bull. Scotland Yard may know, and MI 5 and the Special Branch, but if they do they make no sign, turning a blind eye to certain irregularities, as is the custom between friendly nations.
Nevertheless David Hawk, the irascible and hard-bitten head of AXE, was very conscious of his responsibilities. Now, in one of the sub-basement rooms, plainly but comfortably furnished and air conditioned, he stared at his Number One and said: “This is all as illegal as hell, you know. All of us, the Portuguese and the Negroes, we’re all on slippery ground. Especially the Negroes—they don’t even have a country, much less an Embassy! And the Portuguese aren’t much better off. They have to be very careful with the British, who have been more or less siding with them in the UN on the Angola question. They don’t want to twist the lion’s tail—that’s why they haven’t dared to snatoh the Princess before this.”
Nick Carter lit a gold-tip cigarette and nodded. He and his boss had been talking now for half an hour and, while some matters were coming clear, much was still murky and in limbo. Hawk was getting it cleared up, all right, but in his usual slow and tortuous manner.
Hawk poured a glass of water from a carafe beside him. He dropped in a big round pill, watched the stuff sizzle for a moment, then drank it. He rubbed a belly that was amazingly flat for a man of his years.
“My stomach hasn’t caught up with me yet,” Hawk said. “It’s still in Washington.” He glanced at his wristwatch and shook his head. Nick had seen the look before. He understood. Hawk was of a generation that did not quite, really, understand the jet age.
Hawk said: “Just four and a half hours ago I was sleeping in my own bed. The phone rang. It was the Secretary of State. Forty-five minutes later I was in a CIA plane, doing better than two thousand miles an hour over the Atlantic.” He rubbed his stomach again. ‘Too damned fast for my intestinal clock.”
Killmaster said: “That’s part of what I don’t understand yet, sir. The Secretary himself, a supersonic plane, this hurry-hush meeting. All because the Portuguese let out a yell. I don’t get it.”
His boss seemed not to have heard him. He was grumbling, half to himself, as he shoved an unlit cigar into his thin mouth and began to chew on it. “A CIA plane,” he muttered. “Hell’s bells! AXE should have its own supersonics by now. I’ve had the requisition in long enough—”
Nick Carter was patient. It was the only way when the old man was in a mood like this. He wondered how the Princess da Gama was faring. She was in another part of the sub-basement complex, under the care of two husky AXE matrons. Hawk had given the orders—get the lady on her feet, sober and with her wits about her, ready to talk, in twenty-four hours. Nick considered that it was going to take some doing, but the AXE ladies, both RNs, appeared capable enough.
Nick was aware that Hawk had laid on quite a lot of “staff” for this job. In addition to the women there were at least four burly AXE field men—Hawk preferred his muscle big and rugged, if a little obvious, in preference to the more effete, Ivy types, sometimes used by the CIA and FBI.
In addition there was Tom Boxer—there had been time only for a nod and a brief greeting—whom Killmaster knew to be an N 6 or 7. This, in the AXE T/O, meant that Boxer also held the rank of Killmaster. It was unusual, most highly unusual, that two men of this rank ever met.
Hawk pulled down a wall map. He used his unlit cigar for a pointer. “Good question—about the Portuguese. You think it’s strange that a country like the United States should jump when they whistle? But in this case we did—I’ll explain why. You’ve heard of the Cape Verde Islands?”
“In a vague way. Never been there. Portugal owns them?”
Hawk’s lined farmer’s face creased around the cigar. In his execrable slang he said, “Now, boy, you’re starting to cook with butane. Portugal owns them. Since 1495. Look.”
He pointed with the cigar. “There. About three hundred miles off the west coast of Africa, where it bulges farthest into the Atlantic. Not really so far from our bases in Algeria and Morocco. There are quite a few of the islands, some big, some small. On one or more of them—I don’t know which and I don’t want to know—the United States has buried some treasure.”
Nick regarded his chief with tolerance. The old man was enjoying this. “Treasure, sir?”
“Hydrogen devices, boy! A hell of a lot of them. A whole damned huge stockpile of them.”
