Death of the Falcon Read online

  NICK CARTER

  Death of the Falcon

  Copyright Notice

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  Death of the Falcon

  Sherima

  The former queen of oil-rich Adabi — focus of a murder plot that would embarrass the U.S. Government and throw the Mideast into a nuclear war . . .

  Candy

  The beautiful, love-hungry girl who would do anything tor information and revenge and whose allegiance shifted as easily as the desert. . .

  The Sword

  The ruthless leader of the Silver Scimitar, a group more deadly than the Black September Movement, more bizarre than the Symbionese Liberation Army . . .

  Table of Contents

  Copyright Notice

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 1

  The ringing of the phone in my room allowed the man in the building across the street another thirty seconds to live. I was positive that the phone would ring again, then be silent for twenty seconds before it rang twice more; it would be Hawk’s special tworing system, signaling me to call him immediately. Over the years, I’d developed an almost instinctual sense that knew on the first ring when Hawk’s signal was coming. And ninty-nine times out of a hundred, I was right. I locked in the sight on the Anschutz 1413 Super Match 54 again as the bell jangled for the second time, then was silent. Before the second double ring, I squeezed the trigger.

  The let-off was perfect. Through the partially open French doors across the street, I could see a third eye suddenly appear in my target’s forehead. It was a bit above and between the other two that would never again gleefully watch while an AXE agent was being tortured for information. Their evil twinkling stopped forever as Krischikov slumped forward over his desk. Only that third eye seemed alive as a slight swell of blood appeared in it, glistened in the light, then rolled down across the bridge of his nose.

  The second double ring of the phone came quickly after my shot, and stepping back from the open window of my shabby, rent-by-the-week apartment, I put the rifle down on the bed and picked up the receiver. I dialed Hawk’s direct number and he answered at once.

  “You’re not scrambled,” he warned as always.

  Having a scrambler installed on the phone in that little Montreal apartment hadn’t seemed necessary. Nor did Hawk’s reminder, but he never failed to give it and I automatically replied, “I know.”

  “Have you made that sale yet?”

  “Mr. Kaye just bought it,” I told him. “Now I have to close this office as quickly as possible and move on.”

  “I think it’s time for you to come back to the home office,” the Old Man said slowly. “We have a client in town who needs your services.” He waited for a moment, then added, “It’s one of our biggest clients in Washington. Do you understand?”

  That stopped me for a moment It wasn’t often that Hawk wanted me in Washington; he didn’t like to take the chance that somebody from the competition might spot me—either on their side or ours; because if anything happened in the capital, he and his N-rated agents who might be there at the time would get blamed for it. That’s the trouble with having an N rating—mine’s N3—and being permitted to carry out the ultimate solution to a problem. Everybody thinks you’re a bad guy; that is certainly the feeling on their side, and on ours, too—unless you happen to be doing a dirty little job they don’t feel up to handling. Then the Killmaster becomes a hero—until the job’s done.

  Also, Hawk was never too enthusiastic about lending me out to another agency, and his reference to a “client” could mean another intelligence organization. I wanted to ask him which of the super-intelligence agencies had goofed again and needed us to pick up the pieces for them, but we were on an unscrambled phone, so my questions would have to wait until I got back to the States.

  Not only that, but I realized Hawk’s slow, deliberate tone was intended to convey much more than just the uncomplicated exhaustion at the end of another long day. I knew better than that. For a man who was getting on in years, he could hold his own with the best of us when the job called for it. No, Hawk wasn’t speaking in that tone because he was tired; someone was in the office with him, and the careful pitch of his voice warned me against putting him in a position to say anything that would give that someone any hint of where I was or what I had been up to.

  “Yes, sir,” I said simply.

  “Pack your things and go to the airport,” he instructed matter-of-factly. “I’ll arrange for your plane ticket on the next flight to D.C. . . . Oh yes, I don’t think you’ll need all of your equipment. “I think you can store some of it with the local office.”

  I knew our weapons officer wouldn’t be too happy when he found out I’d left one of his favorite rifles in Montreal; but Hawk obviously wanted me back quickly, and he didn’t want me delayed by airport security clearance which would be inevitable if I tried to board a plane with that gun. I had a specially designed briefcase, with lead shielding for my own weapons, but none for the rifle.

  “I’ll be in your office early tomorrow morning,” I said.

  He had other ideas. “No, go directly to the Watergate Hotel. I’ll contact you there. A reservation’s already been made in your name.” He wasn’t even saying my name, much less the room number, on an unscrambled phone. “I took the liberty of sending someone around there with some clothes for you. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “No sir. That was very thoughtful of you.”

  Hawk was playing it very formally in front of his company, and I knew it must be someone especially important; usually he could get pretty crusty with the brass from the Pentagon or the CIA when they came begging for favors.

  After we said our equally stiff goodbyes, I put down the phone and stood there looking at it for a moment. I was pretty certain the President hadn’t come to Hawk’s office. But there was only one other person in Washington the Old Man really respected: one of his old school chums who had managed to do things right for a change. As I hurriedly packed, I wondered what the Secretary of State had been talking about with Hawk and how it might affect me.

  After checking across the street to make sure Mr. Kaye’s three-eyed corpse hadn’t been discovered yet and somebody wasn’t figuring out the line of fire, I picked up the phone again to call our local office; I had to arrange for the pickup of the rented car I had driven to Montreal and the rifle I would lock in its trunk. Last to be packed were my Luger, Wilhelmina, in its shoulder holster and my stiletto, Hugo, in its chamois forearm sheath. They went into an ingenious compartment in the briefcase the lab boys had designed for agents traveling with weapons on commercial flights. A special lead shielding made certain no alarms went off as we boarded planes. Too bad there hadn’t been time to get a similar suitcase made to transport the rifle; I would have liked to return it personally to Eddie Blessing, our armaments man. His face really lights up when one of his “babies” comes back home. Oh well, I was happy enough just to be bringing my babies with me. I had a feeling I’d be needing them soon.

  Only ten minutes later, I was regretting my hasty packing. As I wa
lked out of the rundown rooming house across from Krischikov’s formerly secure house, I spotted two men lounging against the rented Nova I had parked two doors further down the street. With a flight bag in one hand and a briefcase in the other, I couldn’t have appeared too menacing, for they looked up only briefly at the sound of the door closing behind me, then continued talking. I recognized the language as Russian, and the quick glimpse I’d had of their’ faces in the glare of the streetlight told me who they were.

  I’d come to call them “Laurel and Hardy” in the short time I had been observing Krischikov and this pair who dogged his footsteps. AXE’s local office had filled me in on their actual identities and their jobs as the spy chiefs favorite killers and bodyguards. An hour earlier, I had seen them drive up with their boss and drop him off in front of his hideaway; then they rode away. At the time, it struck me as unusual that they didn’t go into the building with him, as they ordinarily did, and I had mistakenly reasoned that he must have sent them off on some assignment. Obviously, however, their orders had been to return and hang around outside. Either Krischikov had some kind of work to do that he didn’t want them to know about, or he had been expecting someone and had posted them to wait outside, possibly to pick up his visitor and check him out before letting him into the house.

  At that point, it didn’t matter to me what had been on their agenda; I had to get into that Nova and get out of there before one of the servants of the man with three eyes went into Krischikov’s room and discovered the body. The only thing stopping me from getting out of there was this pair of killers. I was pretty certain they had been briefed on what most of our people looked like, including me. Ours isn’t the only intelligence network clever enough to keep “make-sheets” on the enemy.

  I couldn’t stand on the doorstep any longer without arousing their suspicions, and the Nova was the only certain transportation I had out of the area, so I started to walk toward it. Hardy—the beefy one, whom AXE had warned me was a lethal pile of solid muscle—was standing with his back to me. The gangly one—Laurel, a reputed expert with a switchblade who delighted in slicing little pieces off his prisoners until they were ready to talk —was looking right at me as I approached, but not really seeing me in the shadows, engrossed as he was in conversation.

  I could see that just about the time I got to the car trunk I would come into the streetlamp’s little circle of light, and that Laurel probably would be watching me as I walked closer. I angled to the curb, so that Hardy’s back would partially block his companion’s view of me. The size of that back could have blocked out the approach of an M16 tank, except that Laurel was about a head taller than his partner. Instinctively, I knew that something about me had attracted Laurel’s attention as I stepped off the sidewalk and set down my luggage behind the car. Keeping my head turned toward the street, I took out the keys and opened the trunk, sensing as I did, that Laurel had stopped talking and was walking to the rear of the car.

  The click of a switchblade told me that I had been recognized. I. turned to face him just as he lunged toward me, preceded by five inches of steel. I sidestepped and let his momentum carry him forward, then backhanded him on the side of the neck in the nerve center just below the ear. He fell face down into the trunk and I reached up and slammed the lid on his lower back. The heavy metal edge hit him at just about belt level and I could hear a loud snap that must have been his spine.

  I flipped the trunk lid up again and, in the small glow of its light, I could see his face, twisted in pain, the mouth gaping open in silent screams of agony that no one would hear.

  By that time, Hardy was lumbering around the back of the car, one hamlike hand reaching for me as the other fumbled at his belt for a gun. I scooped up a jack handle from the trunk and, using it like an extension of my arm, smashed it straight into that huge pudding face. He backed off, spitting out bits of shattered teeth and snarling in pain as blood spurted from what had been his nose. The arm that had been trying to grab me transformed into a swinging pole as solid as a two-by-four as he swept the jack handle from my grasp. It sailed through the air and clattered to the street.

  If he had been smart, he would have kept trying to free his gun, which was caught between his overflowing belly and a tight belt. Instead, maddened by pain, he lunged forward like an enraged bear, arms spread wide to enfold me in what I knew would be a deadly hug. I had been warned that it was his favorite method of slaughter. At least two men we knew about had been found squeezed almost to pulp, their ribs crushed into vital organs, dying horribly as they drowned in their own blood. I back-stepped onto the curb; locking my eyes onto his gargantuan arms.

  As I moved away from that terrible embrace, he tripped over the dead Laurel’s feet and stumbled forward to his knees. Clenching my hands together, I brought them down on the back of his neck, and he sprawled full-length on the street. The blow would have killed most men instantly, but as I watched In amazement, he grunted, swung his massive head as if to clear his muddled brain, and started to get to his knees. His groping hands stretched out for support and one of them closed on Laurel’s switchblade which had fallen to the pavement. Sausage-like fingers wrapped around the knife handle as he began to rise. What was almost a smile shaped itself on that bloody, now gap-toothed mouth and little piggish eyes gleamed evilly as they focused on me. Recognition also, came into them as he realized who I was, and blood bubbled from his lips as he swore in Russian and said:

  “Sobachkin syn! I split you in two, Carter, and feed you to pigs.” The muscles in his neck strained and a heavy pulse beat danced grotesquely just under the reddening flesh of his thick neck. He took two lumbering steps toward me. Like a punter being rushed by the Vikings defensive line, I kicked him in that ugly crushed-pumpkin face.

  The powerful blob of flesh pitched forward again. The hand clutching the knife hit the street first, holding the blade upright, and the beefy neck came down on it. I sidestepped the spurting blood that fountained from his severed artery and walked to the back of the Nova; jerking Laurel’s still twitching body from the trunk, I slammed the lid.

  As I put my luggage in the rear seat, I heard a shout from the house across the street. It came through the open second-floor French doors and I knew that Krischikov’s corpse had been discovered. Getting into the Nova, I swung swiftly into the still quiet street and headed for the airport, thinking grimly that more surprises lay ahead for the man upstairs when he began to look for Krischikov’s bodyguards.

  Chapter 2

  One thing I had to say about whatever role Hawk was having me play, it came with nice accommodations. According to the tags on the Gucci luggage that was waiting in the room at the Watergate when I arrived, I was Nick Carter of East 48th Street in Manhattan. I recognized the address as that of the Turtle Bay brownstones our bureau used, as offices, “safe house,” and a New York cover residence. The clothes in the bags were obviously expensive, conservative in color, and their cut suggested the taste of a Western oil millionaire. Those boys in Dallas and Houston may not go in for flashy tweeds and checks, but they like their traveling clothes to be as comfortable as the Levi’s they wear around the old corral. The wide-shouldered, side-vented jackets topped tight-fitting trousers with pockets set in the front, blue-jean style, and wide loops to handle the stiff, brass-buckled belts that were packed with them. The extra soft white cotton shirts had double pockets, with buttons in the front. Everything was the right size, I noted, even the several pairs of three-hundred-dollar hand-tooled boots.

  If Hawk wants me to play a wealthy oilman-type, I thought as I unpacked and stored things away in the huge walk-in closet, I don’t mind a bit. The room helped, too. As large as some studio apartments I’d lived in—which is just what it originally was intended to be, because the Watergate was designed as a residence hotel when it first opened—the combination living room-bedroom was about twenty-four feet long and eighteen feet wide. It held a full-size sofa, a couple of side chairs, a large color TV, a complete kitchenette, a
nd a king-size bed was set in an alcove.

  Light streamed into the room from the floor-to-ceiling windows that opened onto the terrace. I looked out over the ten-acre Watergate complex, toward the grandly historic Potomac River, and saw four sculls streaking smoothly over the water. Racing season must be on, I realized, as I watched the college crews stroking rhythmically with the oars. I could tell just when the rival coxswains upped the beat, for the shells suddenly shot forward on the swift-flowing current. My appreciation of the close coordination of the rowers was interrupted by the ringing of the phone. Hawk, I bet myself, as I picked up the receiver. But the voice that said “Mr. Carter?” told me that this was one time out of a hundred that I was wrong.

  “This is Mr. Carter.”

  “This is the concierge, Mr. Carter. Your car is at the front door.”

  I didn’t know what car he was talking about, but on the other hand, I wasn’t going to argue. I answered simply, “Thanks, I’ll be right down.”

  Supposedly, Hawk was the only one who knew Nick Carter was at the Watergate, so I figured he had sent a car for me; I headed for the lobby.

  Passing the concierge’s desk on the way to the front door, I discreetly handed the distinguished-looking, black-suited figure behind the counter a five-dollar bill and said breezily, “Thanks for calling about my car.” If Hawk wanted me to be rich, I’d play rich—on AXE’s money.

  “Thank you, Mr. Carter.” His refined tones drifted after me as I pushed open the glass door leading to the circular drive that secludes the entrance to the hotel. The doorman started to ask if he should signal for one of the ever-present cabs parked around the driveway, then stopped as I headed for the Continental limousine that was idling just off the curbing. Since it was the only one in sight, I figured it had to be my car. The chauffeur leaning back against its side stiffened to attention as I approached, said softly, “Mr. Carter?” When I nodded, he opened the door.