The Black Death Read online

  NICK CARTER

  The Black Death

  Copyright Notice

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  PORTRAIT OF A SPY

  Six-foot-plus of whipcord strength, and he has something in his head besides bone. He has an almost phenomenal memory; a knowledge of many places, people, enemy weaponry and techniques. He doesn’t just love sex, he enjoys it enormously. He prefers to like the women he goes to bed with. He has inherited the mantle of the late Ian Fleming’s James Bond. He’s America’s Number One espionage agent and he mixes mystery, mayhem and loving in equal doses. He stands for counter-intelligence of the highest order.

  Code-named Killmaster, his real name is Nick Carter.

  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 15

  Chapter 1

  It was only the faint, barely discernible tremor of a far-off subway train,—the sound imagined rather than heard, that kept my mind in New York. My guts and my heart were in a dark rain forest somewhere in Haiti where the drums muttered sullenly, the night pressed in and where things that could not be were.

  I had drunk from the cup that had been passed about before the ceremony began, as had the girl beside me and the CIA man, Steve Bennett, and all the others in the small audience—and I knew I had been drugged. Only mildly, but drugged. I had expected it. It wasn’t too bad, and when the stuff started to hit me I put it down as either mescaline or peyote. Maybe psilocybin. I hadn’t had much time to figure it out. Things move pretty fast in a voodoo church, even one on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

  The drum softened into a skein of vibrance in the big dark room. The drummer was in darkness. Someone began to strike a spike against a horse-shoe with a regular little clanging. The air was fetid and hot, and I had been sweating for a long time. The girl’s hand was cool. Cool and long-fingered. She kept stroking her fingers against my palm, over and over, and her hand remained cool—almost cold—while I sweated.

  I peered across the girl at Bennett, the CIA man. I could barely make him out, sitting on his pillow on the floor and staring at the altar where the papaloi had just raised a hand. The drum stopped. The clink of nail on horse-shoe died away. The papaloi stood illuminated in a single narrow bar of misty blue light. He raised his hand again and the whispering stopped. The breathing stopped. The guy was good. The whole damned setup was good and, as far as I knew, authentic. I don’t know all that much about voodoo. My fault, of course. I should have been up on voodoo. When Hawk called from Washington and told me to make the CIA contact, I must have had at least an hour and a half to brush up.

  The girl squeezed my hand in her cool one. She leaned toward me and her lips brushed my ear.

  “This is it,” she whispered. “The big scene. What they’ve been building toward all night. You’ve never seen anything like this in your life!”

  I squeezed her hand in my big sweaty one. Her name was Lyda Bonaventure and she was Haitian. I knew something about her that she didn’t know I knew. Among her own people, and the Haitian underground, she was known as the Black Swan. She looked the part. As beautiful and graceful as a swan—and as dangerous if you got too close.

  The papaloi spoke: “Dans nom tout Dieux et tout Mystfere.”

  Something about in the name of the Gods and the Mysteries. His French was too good, too pure, to be Haitian Creole, so I figured him for a local product. They say you can find everything in the world in New York and they’re right!

  The blue light went out and for a moment the darkness was total. The girl stroked my hand with her long cool fingers. Steve Bennett whispered at me in the gloom: “What in hell did they put in that drink, Nick? I’m beginning to believe all this stuff.”

  “Relax and enjoy it,” I said softly. “It was free and, in our case, legal. Don’t look a gift trip in the mouth.”

  He grunted at me, but before he could answer another light came on. It was a tenuous bar of bloody mist, filtering in from behind and above us, and in it the mamaloi sat cross-legged before the altar. She was alone, halfway between the altar and the intricate vever drawn on the floor in corn meal. She was black and thin and moved like she was made of wire. Her head was wrapped in a red bandanna, she wore a sack-like dress and she had stumpy yellow teeth clamped around a short pipe. She was one real good bit of casting. I could understand how Steve Bennett was starting to believe it.

  The mamaloi—she had been introduced as Maman Denise —sucked in her cheeks and her face looked like a black skull.

  She made a hissing sound, and I could feel a snake in the room.

  From a pocket of her dress she took two small vials and, leaning forward, poured them on the headless chickens that lay within the vever. A red cock and a black cock. Earlier the papaloi had twisted off their heads and spun them about and as a result I had chicken blood on my $300 suit.

  A vial of oil and a vial of wine. The mamaloi poured them slowly onto the headless roosters. She shuttled her hands so the oil and wine mixed and formed a pattern in the cornmeal of the vever. When the vials were empty she cast them away and threw back her head to stare upward. Slowly she raised both hands. A single drum began to tremble in the gloom softly . . . softly . . .

  “Damballa,” said the mamaloi. “Oh, God Damballa! Great and fierce and loving and punishing God, Damballa! Permit and bless this thing we do, for we do it in your name, Damballa, and for you. Damballa—Damballa!”

  The drum stepped up its tempo. The light went out again. Darkness. The girl stroked my hand. The CIA man muttered something that I did not catch. The whispering moved about me like a miasmic breeze. I sweated.

  Light again. A broader light, this time pale greenish, limned the girl and the black goat. The mamaloi was gone.

  The girl was very young. In her teens and nubile. Very black and very beautiful. She wore a single garment, a short white shift that clung to her body and covered but did not conceal. Her feet were bare. Her eyes were long, almond, slitted now as she began to dance slowly around the goat. The drum began to pick up the beat. Faster and a little faster.

  The goat was not tethered. It stood in the center of the vever, quietly, watching the girl dance about it. It was a big goat, with shiny curved horns. It had been well combed and brushed and blue and red ribbons tied into its fleece. It watched the circling girl. The goat’s eyes, in the soft, hot, green light, were large and round and lambent gold. It slowly turned its head to watch the girl.

  The girl danced back into darkness and when she emerged into light again she had something in her mouth. A sprig of greenery. Leaves. She fell to her knees and crawled slowly toward the goat The animal stood unmoving, watching her with those yellow eyes.

  I shifted position just a bit to ease the Luger where it was biting into me. I curled my fingers into my cuff to feel the tip of the chamois sheath housing the stiletto on my right forearm. The feel of both weapons was reassuring. Something had touched my instinct just now, and I was beginning to get a little nervous.

  The black girl crawled toward the goat. The animal moved for the first time. It took a s
tep toward the girl and it made a sound. A human sound.

  That goat was crying and moaning like a human child.

  Steve Bennett muttered. I had a rod of ice along my spine. I knew that I was half drugged and that it was all trickery, but still I was half frightened. And nervous. I get a feeling about these things.

  The girl began to bleat like a goat, softly, piteously, imploring something of the animal that was now more human than she. She crawled on all fours until she was face to face with the goat. They stared at each other, the girl’s eyes dark and slitted and the goat’s eyes flaring golden in the gloom. The girl had the sprig of leaves and twigs in her mouth. She leaned close, closer, and her mouth touched that of the goat. The animal took the leaves from her mouth and began to munch slowly, always watching the girl.

  Silence now. The girl backed slowly away and got to her knees and flung her body backward. She began to bleat again, softly, little goat sounds. I stared at the dark behind her, trying to make out the forms of the mamaloi and papaloi. This was damned good ventriloquism and I wondered which one of them was doing it.

  The girl was rocking back and forth, still making the bleating sounds. The goat cried like a baby. The girl made a swift motion and the white shift fell away from her shoulders and slid down to her waist. Her body was oiled, dark and glistening and her breasts were small and firm and pointed. She rocked back and forth, staring at the goat and bleating softly, and she began to stroke her rigid nipples with her fingers. Sweat was streaming from her now. Me too.

  The drum muted again, a barely heard throb in the gloom. The girl moved and the white shift was gone and she was naked. She stood up and raised her arms. She took a step toward the goat and began to undulate her body slowly, twisting and grinding her pelvis, stroking herself, going almost to her knees in a lithe movement and then coming up with a shuddering outward thrust. The goat moved toward her, silent now, the golden eyes gleaming. The goat lowered its head and shook it and pawed at the floor.

  The girl danced to one side, around the goat, so that it must turn to follow her, and in the darkness about me there was a long and whispery sigh as we all saw the size and the strength—the brute power symbol—of the goat’s phallus.

  The girl went slowly to her knees, legs wide spread and body flexing backward. She was silent now, as was the goat. The girl stared upward, her eyes rolled back in her head. Her fingers flickered over her breasts.

  The goat moved toward her. Near me someone groaned softly.

  Lyda Bonaventure took her hand from mine. She moved her hand to more private regions.

  The lights came on, white and blinding, and then the shooting began.

  Chapter 2

  There were three of them. They all wore ski masks and they carried machineguns and they had massacre and murder in their hearts. They had come in the single rear door and spread out quietly and now there was one on each side of the big room and one at the back. The machineguns leaped in their hands as they hammered short bursts into the crowd. These bastards weren’t choosy—they were acting on the shotgun principle. Kill everybody in sight and you were bound to get the ones you were after.

  It had been well planned, because the guy on the right got the mamaloi and papaloi with the first burst. As the papaloi was blasted down he let out a screaming yell that I heard even over the yammering of the guns.

  “Tonton Macoute!” Bogyman! Papa Doc had invaded New York.

  Any battle is hectic and confused and this one was no exception. I had Lyda Bonaventure under me, trying to shield her, and I got the gunner on the right with the second shot from the Luger. My first shot was high because Lyda was grabbing my arm and screaming something at me.

  This got me the attention of the gunner on the left and he tried for me and got Steve Bennett instead. Bennett was on his knees, leveling a revolver across his forearm and firing, and the blast took most of his head off. I got off three more with the Luger, and the bogyman dropped his machinegun and grabbed at his guts and went to his knees.

  That left the man at the rear, and he lost his head and started backing toward the door, firing at random into the screaming, bloody crowd. I tried for him but it was no good because four guys and a woman, in understandable terror and panic, rushed screaming and clawing at him. I couldn’t fire, and he killed two of the men before he turned and ran out the door. I wasn’t about to go after him. He was no longer my business; Lyda Bonaventure was and she was the only contact I had on this job and in about one minute there would be ten thousand cops swarming over the premises. That I could do without. AXE is on the side of the angels, at least in most cases, but we’ve got standing orders never to get mixed up with the local police if it can be avoided. The boys in blue just never seem to grasp the AXE viewpoint.

  Lyda was tugging at my arm and yelling at me. She had ! beautiful teeth and she showed them all as she pulled at me and screamed: “This way, Nick! Under the altar! There’s a way out.”

  She didn’t want the cops any more than I did. Neither of us could do the other any good in the pokey. We ran toward the altar, stepping over the bodies and slipping in blood. Waterloo, I thought, must have looked something like this on the morning after.

  There was no time to count the dead and wounded, even if I had wanted to, and no time to help them. There was no sign of the black girl. The damned goat stood quietly off to one side, chewing on the twigs and leaves, and surveying the carnage with calm golden eyes. The drummer was slumped over his drum, still twitching, and both the mamaloi and papaloi were dead in their own blood.

  Behind the altar was an open trap door. There was a ladder and far below a faint glimmer of yellow light. Lyda let go of me and swung her slim long legs down onto the ladder. “Come on,” she gasped. “Hurry—Hurry! The police will be here any second.”

  She was so right! I slipped the Luger back in my belt holster and went down after her. I was lucky to find a way out and knew it. If there is anything Hawk hates it is to have one of his agents collared and have to answer a lot of questions. Or not answer them, which can lead to complications.

  The ladder ended in a long corridor. It was dimly lit and asbestos-wrapped steam pipes ran along the top. Again I felt the tremor of a far-off subway train. That, I thought, would be the Broadway IRT.

  Lyda Bonaventure tapped my arm and flashed those marvelous teeth at me in a grim little smile and said, “Come on, Nick! Run!”

  She turned right and started to run. her long legs flashing in textured stockings beneath her mini-skirt. I tagged along. As we ran, the rumble of the subway became louder.

  They say you can always learn something new, and this night I did. I learned that a great many of the buildings in New York are connected, far below ground, by doors leading from one basement to another, and from one sub-basement to another. If you have the keys to these doors, or can arrange for them to remain unlocked, you can travel a hell of a long way underground. As we did now. I have no desire to see another boiler room as long as I live. There were tunnels and rats and dank deserted spaces and incinerators and laundry rooms and storage rooms with piles of moldering trunks.

  We saw one guy. One. A slight dark man who chewed a stub of cigar and watched as we ran past.

  Lyda spoke to him. “Lock up after us, Jose! You haven’t seen anything.”

  This kid, I thought, gets around. She knows what she is about. Now all I had to do was find out what she was about and take it from there. One thing I couldn’t do—trust her. Not any more than that goat back there.

  It was maybe a half hour before we came topside. All this time we had been running, or walking fast, and Lyda hadn’t said more than a couple of words. Like: “Hurry up!”

  I knew we weren’t in any great danger of being arrested now, and I began to wonder what she was in such a tearing sweat about. I figured we were safe enough for the time being. She didn’t. She kept running and beckoning me on and she was working up a sweat that glistened on her cafe-au-lait skin. She was wearing some expensive
perfume, and it mingled with her sweat. A couple of times, when we slowed and got close together, I remembered how she had touched me back there just before the roof fell in. Something, I thought, just possibly might be done about that But this was not the time for hanky panky. We would see.

  Our last basement was that of a large apartment house at 79th and West End Avenue. Not bad when you consider that we had started at 84th and Amsterdam, in what had once been an Irish bar owned by a gentleman by the name of Toolan, and was now the headquarters of HIUS. Haitians in the United States.

  The elevator was down and off somewhere I could see lights and hear a swift jumble of Spanish. Lyda led me around the open elevator and up a flight of stairs to a lobby as quiet and dark, and nearly as large, as a cathedral. Her high heels tick-tacked on the black and white tiles as we went through a glass door and came out on West End. It was a balmy night, soft and warm in the middle of April, unusual for the city at that time of year.

  We walked toward the corner at 79th. It was only a little after eleven and there was a lot of traffic. Plenty of empty cabs cruising on West End. I moved over between Lyda and the curb and took her arm. She smiled at me and then laughed.

  “No need to worry, Nick. I’m not going to run away.”

  I nodded. “I know that, Lyda. I’m not going to let you run away. What we are going to do, you and I, is to go someplace and have a nice long talk about a number of things. That’s my job, and anyway I am a very curious man. Especially now, after that shooting match back there. So?”

  I gave her my best smile. “Do we do it the easy way or the hard way?”

  We stopped on the corner. I kept a light grip on her arm. To our left the blaze and cacophony of upper Broadway overwhelmed the night, kept back the darkness. People swarmed about us. The pavement vibrated as a train thundered to a stop at the 79th Street station. In the hard gaze of street lights, in washed neon, we studied each other. She stared at me, her eyes narrowed a bit, her straight little nose twitched and her brow furrowed, and I could see how hard she was thinking.