Eighth Card Stud Read online

  Annotation

  In the high desert not far from Las Vegas is the most secret and critical military testing site in the country. And when its chief scientist, Dr. Richard Burlison, is found dead it means that the enemy is on to Project Eighth Card! With the help of Burlison's very cooperative widow, Nick Carter is betting blind — and the stakes are world peace!

  * * *

  Nick CarterChapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  * * *

  Nick Carter

  Killmaster

  Eighth Card Stud

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

  Chapter One

  The silver speck appeared in the clear, blue sky over the desert. It shimmered and danced closer until the dull hum of a jet engine could be heard. Then the sky exploded with eye-searing fury.

  A deadly lance of light stabbed upward, touched the drone plane, and slashed on through the metal, to vanish into space. The drone hung suspended for a moment as if unsure what to do. Gravity claimed it and pieces began tumbling earthward. Before it touched the dry sands of the New Mexico desert, pieces of the sundered drone caught fire. Fiery debris showered down like some sinister acid rain.

  "Damn, that was too close," said Richard Burlison, brushing a speck of smouldering insulation from his sleeve. "I told you we should have been back in the bunker with the rest of the bigshots."

  "Don't sweat it, doc," said the range safety officer. "This is about as safe as being with those fat-assed senators. We don't have to breathe their used cigar smoke."

  "I hope they liked the show," Burlison said. "Maybe they'll give me a few extra bucks for the project."

  "That laser's really something, isn't it?" the Air Force officer asked. He trained a pair of binoculars on the spot where much of the drone had crashed. "I'd better get down there. Looks like a small fire is starting up in the tumble weeds."

  "Okay, captain. You get that taken care of, and I'll see to the bunker. It looked as if the laser tube danced around a little just prior to firing. Shouldn't have happened unless there's a loose bolt or two on the carriage."

  "Yeah, sure, doc." The Air Force officer keyed his microphone and issued orders to get the fire-fighting team out onto the test range. He jumped into his jeep and roared off, kicking up a cloud of choking dust. Burlison spat out a mouthful of dirt and cursed the departing officer. All those military types were unthinking. He sometimes worried about turning over a powerful weapon like Eighth Card to them. He shrugged it off. He was a physicist and not a policymaker. Let the big brains in the Department of Defense worry about who controlled his laser cannon.

  He got into his car and drove expertly over the rough dirt road to the concrete bunker squatting on the barren hilltop. A jerk on the heavy steel door revealed a roomful of monstrous capacitors, dark and silent now that they had given their frightful energies over to the laser. The reek of ozone hung like garlic in the air. Burlison wrinkled his nose and moved through the gloomy interior to the control panels. His eyes darted from side to side checking meters and making certain that the capacitors had fully discharged. Even a slight residual charge could make it dangerous walking through this bunker.

  The laser itself was a thick tube almost four feet in diameter. The highly polished mirrors inside couldn't be seen. A faint hiss of superheated carbon dioxide leaving the lasing chamber told Burlison that the experiment had gone smoothly, in spite of his worries. He began noting the various readouts on the panels, although a duplicate set had been transmitted to the main computer miles away. He preferred to check things out on the scene. Even though the entire project would have been impossible without the silent, absolute electronic devotion of the computers, he never quite trusted them. They lacked certain human discriminating qualities. He could tell if something didn't «feel» right. No computer could duplicate his subjective experience in this field.

  Concentrating on the data in front of him, Burlison didn't see the shadow-shrouded figure slip through the open door of the bunker. The figure moved quickly through the forest of automobile-sized capacitors to the base of the laser cannon. A silvery flash and a wrench was applied to the already loosened bolts on the carriage. In less than a minute of undetected work, the bolts fell free and were discarded. The cloaked man began fingering certain controls near the laser.

  Richard Burlison looked up, his head cocked to one side. The familiar hum of a charging capacitor made him glance around. The emergency discharge rods on the tops of the capacitors danced with fat blue sparks. The laser was priming to throw another herculean bolt of coherent light.

  "What the hell?" he said aloud. He savagely stabbed a finger down on the emergency override button. It should have halted the charging. It should have. It didn't.

  Still, Burlison felt no fright, only anger. Equipment malfunction was an everyday occurrence for the man. He authorized high expenditures for top-of-the-line equipment only to have the idiots in the purchasing department buy the cheapest, most inferior merchandise possible. A safety switch had frozen somewhere because it had been purchased from the lowest bidder. That had to be the problem.

  He heaved himself to his feet and went to look for the malfunctioning switch. This allowed the shadowy figure to move to the abandoned control panel. Expert fingers caressed the controls, telling the tracking computer exactly what to do. The mighty tube of the laser pulled back from the slot in the roof of the bunker, lowered, and bucked wildly due to the lack of fastening bolts in its base.

  "What's going on?" cried out Burlison, unable to switch off the flood of electricity surging into the capacitors. He raced back to the control panel and saw the shrouded figure hunched forward, busily programming the computer. "Who the hell are you? This is a security area. You can't just…"

  He froze when he saw the laser. It swung slowly, menacingly, toward him. The bolts that should have prevented it from turning to a target inside the bunker had been skillfully removed. Burlison knew from the crackle of the capacitors that they were nearly recharged. A single lightning bolt stab from the tip of this laser would incinerate him.

  "Don't touch anything! This is a dangerous toy you're playing with. Just let me…"

  "Stand where you are or I'll trigger it," came the cold command. No trace of emotion marred those words, and this caused Burlison to believe that the man would kill.

  "What do you want?"

  "You were not supposed to be in the bunker," accused the mysterious figure. "The test required your presence with the other observers."

  "I saw a glitch in one of the readouts and came to check. But who are you? How do you know all this? This is a top secret government project."

  Burlison began to edge toward the door of the bunker. It was a long run, but another few feet would get him out of the firing radius of the laser. After that, he could dash for his car and get on the radio. The range safety officer would be here in minutes. The man might have that rigid, unyielding military mentality but he was dependable.

  The only warning Burlison had was the faint corona glowing like a halo around the laser. The man at the panel had triggered the laser's automatic firing sequence. A fraction of a second delay was all Burlison had. Diving forward, he landed hard on the concrete floor. Inches above his head, the world raged with the virulence of the laser beam. One shot blasted through the wall of the concrete bunker as if it were constructed of ice cream. Sparks from ruined electrical equipment showered down on the prone
man's back. Dazed, he found he couldn't even stand. A wrench accurately applied to the back of his head caused the world to shatter in a fireworks display that rapidly faded into blackness.

  Seconds later the entire bunker erupted, tongues of blast furnace-hot flame blazing out the open doorway.

  I'd lost almost a thousand dollars on two rolls of the dice. Lady Luck wasn't with me at the dice table, so I moved through the casino, waiting for her to favor me again. The instant I saw the dealer at the blackjack table, I knew things were looking up.

  I sat down and pushed out the solitary black chip I had left.

  The dealer smiled at me, her teeth flashing perfect and white. She tossed her head and a vagrant strand of honey-blond hair slid back into place as if by magic. Her intense Brazilian topaz-green eyes sent shivers up and down my spine, and that was unusual. I've met women all around the world, enjoyed their company both in bed and out, but never had I felt such attraction.

  "I'm Nick," I said, "and you look like you'll bring me luck."

  "Sorry, I deal for the house. If the house doesn't win, I don't get paid. "Her voice was soft and musical, gently teasing. I approved.

  "Deal and let's see if I can't rob you of a pay raise." I didn't pay much attention to the cards themselves. This blond beauty's dexterity was nothing short of remarkable. I realized she could easily deal off the bottom of the deck or palm cards and the majority of the players in the half-circle around the table would never notice. But she dealt accurately and fairly.

  And I won. And continued to win. Soon my bets increased to the point where she called over the pit boss.

  "What is it, Kristine?" the man asked, eyeing me and the stack of hundred dollar chips in front of me. I leaned back and lit a cigarette while they talked in low, muffled tones. It was a relief to know exactly what they were discussing without having to be on my paranoid guard about it.

  "He wants to bet beyond table limit. He's won consistently."

  "And I lost consistently over at the dice table," I told them. "This is just winning back some of my own money."

  "Mighty heavy betting," the pit boss said. I had over twenty thousand in front of me.

  "I'm on vacation and I want to live dangerously for a change," I lied. To me, this wasn't the least bit dangerous and was only mildly exciting. My life seemed a long chain of people trying to kill me before I could kill them. I had registered at the hotel under the name Nick Crane, but my dossier in Washington told the true story. I'm Nick Carter, Killmaster, working for the most secret of the secret agencies, and had finally talked my boss into letting me take a short vacation. Getting a stolen Indian atomic bomb back from one of the more fanatical Arab terrorist groups had sounded easy when I took the assignment. It had come close to finishing me off. I deserved the vacation in Las Vegas and since sitting down at this blackjack table had actually begun enjoying my leisure.

  "Let him bet it all, Kristine," said the pit boss, handing the woman a sealed deck of cards. She expertly stripped off the cellophane and riffled through the deck. I could tell by the way they slid over one another and onto the table that the cards weren't repackaged. Not that it mattered. I'm a good judge of human nature and didn't think she would use a marked deck.

  A crowd had accumulated to watch the game. I smiled and bent forward to look at my hole card. The queen of hearts. An omen for the game — and after. With the deuce showing, I had a total of twelve, hardly enough to win.

  "Hit me," I said, although Kristine's card was a six of clubs. A trey flopped upwards. "Again." A five of spades gave me twenty. "I'll stand."

  She flipped over another card and then looked into my eyes. She'd drawn the king of hearts.

  "I'm busted," she said, turning over a ten of diamonds hole card. I showed mine and a silent communication flowed between us. "Queen of hearts, king of hearts. Interesting combination."

  "Mr. Crane," interrupted the pit boss, "would you be so kind as to accept a free dinner and the late show — on the house, of course. I'm sure you will find the food exceptional and the entertainment the best in Las Vegas."

  I'd just won more than most of the people watching earned in a year, maybe five years. The casino considered it good advertising to show off a big winner, but it wasn't good policy for me to continue winning. The odds were on their side — usually. With the run of luck I'd just shown, I could bankrupt the casino with a couple more good hands. But I could afford to be generous and stop while I was ahead. The fact that the pit boss had used the false name I'd registered under told me that he had been checking up on me. Sure that it was due solely to my run of luck, I relaxed a bit more.

  "Don't mind if I take you up on that. But I hate to eat alone and this entertainment you mentioned would be dreary without someone to share it with. I might just decide to continue playing."

  The pit boss started to say something, but Kristine took his arm and pulled him a step away. She gestured animatedly and finally smiled broadly.

  "I'll be glad to show you around Vegas, Mr. Crane."

  "Call me Nick, and I'd be delighted. When do you get off duty?"

  "Right now. Mr. Tackett's letting me off early tonight."

  "Wonderful," I said. And it was. There's nothing quite as satisfying as being with a lovely woman. I quickly found out she had brains as well. She spoke earnestly and intelligently on such a wide variety of topics we never got past the bar on our way to the dinner show.

  "So how'd you happen to end up dealing blackjack?"

  She shrugged and made it an erotic movement. The trim uniform she wore fit her perfectly. She had unbuttoned it at the collar — and the next two buttons as well — to allow her firm, ripe breasts to impudently thrust forward. I thought she was in dire peril of having both delightful globes come tumbling out into the cool air of the bar. I decided it was my duty to sit and see if this happened. You never know when you can count on opportunity to come knocking.

  "I went to school at UCLA for a while. Majored in business, but that was so dry it bored me to death. I found other things to do. One weekend some friends and I went up to Lake Tahoe. On a lark, I got into a game and found I was good at it. Took a job there dealing on weekends and one thing led to another. I moved here last year and still enjoy the feel of the cards slipping off the deck, the clink of the chips. The bright lights and movie stars and just about everything else about Vegas appeals to me, too. I guess I'm just an incurable romantic."

  "Me, too," I said. For a moment, she didn't move. Then she bent forward slightly and closed her eyes. I kissed her lips. My vacation in Las Vegas was going to be great.

  "Ummm," she said after a while," you do that well. Even better than you play cards. Is there anything else you do expertly?"

  "One or two things," I admitted.

  "Only one or two? I would think a man like you could do many things well." Her fingers caressed my upper arms. She traced out the thick muscles and knotted packets of tendon corded on shoulder and biceps. "So much strength. It's enough to make me swoon."

  "You sound like a heroine in one of the old silent movies," I laughed. "Do you need rescuing?"

  "Only from myself," she said. Her eyes studied me more intently. "Are you in the movies?" she asked. A man as handsome as you should be in the public eye a lot."

  I laughed harshly. "Too many scars for that," I said without thinking. The instant I said it I knew she would be curious. I swore under my breath. Even with a fascinating woman, I can never let down my guard for an instant. Maybe I should amend that to especially with such a lovely woman. My life has too many pitfalls in it at times.

  "Are you a stunt man? How'd you get scars you worry about?"

  "In a way," I said obliquely, "I'm a stunt man."

  "Show me some stunts," she said hotly. "And show me your scars, too. I love a man with scars."

  Her room fitted her perfectly. Tastefully decorated in a subdued pastel, it still contained elements of wild passion. Flaming reds and oranges dotted the room in the form of oil paint
ings — original and by Kristine, I noticed.

  "I like it," I said honestly. "Very nice." And that was as far as I got. She showed me how closely her room paralleled her own emotions. She had been quiet on the way over here from the bar. Now she exploded in a frenzy of activity. Her lips crushed hard against mine, her tongue demanding even more intricate pleasures. I delivered. My mouth opened and her eager tongue darted inside, playing hide and seek with mine. Soon our hands began to explore the curves and contours of each other's body, and our clothing seemed to evaporate like dewdrops in the morning sun.

  Her bed was impossibly soft. I felt as if I were floating when she lay down beside me. My inner tensions grew as her passion fed mine. I found I couldn't get enough of her. My hand slithered up and down the gloriously naked expanse of her smoothly skinned body, relishing the coolness that turned rapidly into warm, sweaty female flesh.

  "Oh, Nick darling, I need you so. From the second I saw you in the casino, I knew we were meant for each other. Don't stop, ohhh, yes! That's what I want!"

  I rolled atop her, her legs opening willingly for me. My heavy, muscular body moved with the ease of familiarity. I felt her sex surround me, clutching and warm and humid. Moving with great deliberation, I thrust and pulled until both of us were moaning and panting with desire. She bucked and thrashed about under my weight, and I knew the time had arrived. Faster, I drove myself into her wanton depths until we both felt that wondrous sensation of ice and iron gripping at our consciousnesses.

  Afterward, her arms circled my neck and pulled my head down. Her lips met mine in a quick, almost chaste kiss.

  "You're good, Nick, but I knew you would be. Everything about you radiates quality."

  "You're beautiful, too," I said, meaning it more than I'd ever meant anything in my life. "Unique, one of a kind."

  "I bet you say that to all your ladies," she joked, her nimble fingers tracing along a spiderweb of scars on my chest. Her fingertips were much nicer than the knife blades that had left those marks.