Death of the Falcon Read online

  “I can’t buy that, Candy,” I said, shaking my head slowly again. “Don’t forget, you already knew what kind of a man I was. You and I were together before Abdul even knew about me. He had gone off to Alexandria with Sherima before I met you that first night. You remember that night, don’t you?”

  “That was just because I was so lonesome!” She was sobbing now, looking wildly at Abdul. Apparently, she hadn’t told him everything about her initial meeting with me. “Abdul and I hadn’t had a chance to be together for months. There was so much to do getting ready to leave Sidi Hassan. And then all the time we were in London I had to be with Sherima because she was acting like such a baby. Abdul, it was nothing that first night with him. You have to believe me. It was just that I needed someone. You know how I am.”

  She started to run to him, but he backed up so that he could keep an eye on me. “Stay there, my dear,” he said sharply, stopping her. “Don’t get between Mr. Carter and my friend here.” He motioned with the gun. “That is just what he wants you to do.”

  “Then it’s all right? You do understand, Abdul?” She brushed away the tears. “Tell me it’s all right, darling.”

  “Yes, Abdul,” I prodded him, “do tell her everything.

  Tell her all about the Silver Scimitar and how you’re the Sword of Allah who’s been leading the most vicious pack of killers in the world. Tell her about all the innocent II people you’ve sacrificed to try to take over control of the entire Mideast. And be sure to tell her how she’s the next one to be sacrificed.”

  “That’s enough, Mr. Carter,” he said coldly at the same time Candy asked, “What is he talking about, Abdul? What about the Silver Scimitar and what about me being the next sacrifice?”

  “Later, my dear,” he said, watching me intently. “I’ll explain it all as soon as Mustapha returns. We have much to do yet.”

  “That’s right, Candy,” I said harshly. “You will find out when Mustapha gets back. Right now, he’s loading the trunk of the Cadillac with the bodies of the two people upstairs. Then he’s to come back for Karim there on the floor. And he’s saving space for you in the trunk, too. Right, Abdul? Or do you prefer the Sword of Allah, now that your moment of triumph is so close at hand?”

  “Yes, Mr. Carter, I think I do,” he said. Then he turned slightly toward Candy, whose hands had gone to her face in horror at my words. She stared at him unbelievingly as he turned to her and continued in an icily brutal tone, “Unfortunately, my dear, Mr. Carter is very correct. Your usefulness to me ended as soon as you made it possible for me to make the former Queen my prisoner and lured Mr. Carter here. As for you, Mr. Carter,” he went on, turning back to me, “I think you have said enough. Now please remain silent or I shall be forced to use this rifle, even though it would entail a change in my plans.”

  The tipoff that I had been right about the Sword intention of using my corpse as the best piece of evidence to support his story—that he and I had tried to rescue Sherima—made me a bit more daring in the face of the automatic weapon. He would fire it at me only as a last resort, I decided, and I hadn’t forced him to that point yet. I wanted to keep talking to Candy despite his threats, so I said:

  “You see, Candy, there are people who make love for mutual pleasure, such as you and I experienced, and there are people like Abdul, here, who make love out of hate to achieve their own ends. Abdul became your lover when he was ready to use you and not before, the way I figure it.”

  She lifted a tearstained face and looked toward me without seeing. “Up to that time, we’d just been friends. He’d come around and we’d talk about my father and how terrible it was for Hassan to be responsible for his death, to save his own greedy life. Then, finally, he told me he had loved me for a long time and . . . and I’d been so careful for such a long time, and—” She suddenly realized what she was revealing about herself and looked guiltily toward Sherima, then back to me.

  I suspected that long ago she had confided to her old friend about the intense search for satisfaction that once had driven her from man to man. But she had no way of knowing I was aware of her nymphomania. Now it was obvious that, having started to admit it in front of me, she had become embarrassed. More importantly, I was conscious of the passage of time and Mustapha’s impending return to the concealed room. I had to make a move before that, and letting Candy get involved in a discussion of her affair with Abdul wasn’t going to do anything but use up valuable minutes.

  Taking a chance that the crafty Arab’s plotting went way back, I asked her, “Did Abdul ever tell you that he was the one who planned the assassination attempt in which your father died? Or that the killer never was supposed to get to the Shah. Isn’t that right?” I prodded him, while Candy and Sherima both gaped in shock and disbelief. “Wasn’t he just somebody else you used, intending to shoot him down before he got close enough to actually knife Hassan? You knew that saving the Shah’s life would win you his trust since he was that kind of man. Not only that, if Hassan had been slain then, his people would have wiped out everyone connected with the assassination, and it probably would have meant the end of your Silver Scimitar movement. You weren’t powerful enough to ask for help from the rest of the Arab world.”

  The Sword didn’t answer, but I could see his finger tightening again on the rifle trigger. I was pretty sure I had guessed right, but I didn’t know how far I could go before those bullets would start spewing out at me. I had to take it one step more to try to spur Candy into action.

  “See how quiet the great man is now, Candy?” I said. “I’m right and he won’t admit it, but he’s really the one responsible for your father’s death, and furthermore—”

  “Nick, you are right!” Sherima exclaimed, interrupting me. Abdul took his eyes off me for an instant to glance her way, but the cold gaze came back onto me before there was time to jump him.

  Her voice full of excitement, Sherima kept on talking: “I just remembered something that Hassan said when he was telling me about the attempt on his life. It didn’t register then, but what you just said recalls it—makes it fit logically. He said that it was too bad that Abdul Bedawi had thought he’d had to push Mr. Knight in front of the assassin before he shot him down. That Abdul already had his gun out and probably could have shot him without trying to create a diversion by shoving Mr. Knight. It was Abdul who sacrificed your father, Candy, not His Highness!”

  It was impossible for the Sword to watch all three of us. He was concentrating on Sherima and her story and on me, for obvious reasons. If Candy hadn’t cried out in pain and rage when she turned to grab for her gun on the bed, he wouldn’t have swung on her fast enough. She’d barely raised the little pistol waist high when the heavy slugs began stitching their way across her chest, then back across her face as Abdul reversed the path of his bullet-spewing gun. Miniature fountains of blood erupted from countless holes in her beautiful breasts and erupted from the hazel eyes that would narrow no more in passion as she teased her lover to endless climax.

  One of Abdul’s first bullets had knocked Candy’s pistol from her hand and sent it spinning along the floor. I dived for it as he kept on holding back the rifle’s trigger, viciously keeping the stream of bullets following the pathetic target that jerked and twisted from the impact, even as the once lovely redhead was thrown backward onto the bed. His slugs sought out and made hate-filled love up and down her legs.

  I was just about to scoop up Candy’s gun—a .25-caliber Beretta Model 20—when my movements apparently caught his attention. The heavy rifle arched in my direction. Triumph glinted in his eyes and I could see that madness and a lust for power had swept away all thought of his need for my corpse later. The time was now, and a smile crossed his face as he sighted the barrel deliberately at my groin.

  “Never again, Mr. Carter,” he said, his trigger finger going white from the pressure as he pulled it back further and further until it would move no more. His face suddenly paled as he realized with horror, at the same moment I did
, that the rifle clip was empty, its deadly contents spent in a macabre intercourse with a corpse.

  I had to laugh at his unintentional use of the international Jewish slogan which protested that the horror that had once engulfed European Jews would never be repeated. “You could get thrown out of the Arab League for saying that,” I told him as I grabbed up the Beretta and leveled it at his stomach.

  Candy’s death obviously hadn’t sated the rage that had gripped him; reason was gone from his head as he cursed and threw the rifle at me. I sidestepped it and gave him time to jerk back his tight jacket and pull out the gun I had known for so long was holstered there. Then it was my turn to squeeze a trigger. The Model 20 is noted for its accuracy, and the slug shattered his wrist bone just as I expected it to do.

  He cursed again, looking down at the twitching fingers that couldn’t hold onto the gun. It hit the floor at an angle and we both watched, momentarily immobile and fascinated, as it spun briefly at his feet. He was the first to move, and I waited again as his left hand clawed for the heavy automatic. When he got it almost waist high, Candy’s Beretta barked a second time, and he had another splintered wrist; again the automatic crashed to the floor.

  Like a man gone berserk, the Sword advanced on me, his hands flapping uselessly at the ends of massive arms that reached out to enfold me in what I knew would be a bone-crushing bear hug. I wasn’t about to risk his reaching me. The second crack of the Beretta sounded like an echo of the sharp retort that preceeded it by a second.

  Abdul screamed twice as the bullets tore into his kneecaps, then another shriek tore from his throat as he slumped forward and landed on the knees that already were sending knife-sharp streaks of pain through him. Driven by a brain that no longer was functioning logically, he pulled himself up on his elbows and began to inch his way toward me, across the linoleum tiles. Obscenities poured from his twisted lips like bile until he finally sprawled at my feet, mumbling unintelligibly.

  I turned away and walked to Sherima’s side, suddenly aware that her screams, which had begun as the Sword’s bullets ripped Candy apart, had subsided into deep, rasping sobs. Shifting gun hands so I would be ready in case the secret door started to open, I unsheathed my stiletto and cut the first of her bonds. As her arm dropped, lifeless, to her side, she became aware of my presence and lifted her bowed head. She looked at me, then at the Sword groaning in pain on the floor, and I could see her throat muscles tighten to hold back her reflex to gag.

  “Good girl,” I said as she fought off throwing up. “I’ll have you loose in a minute.”

  She shuddered and, involuntarily, started to look toward the bed. I moved in front of her to obstruct the view of the blood-covered woman she loved like a sister, as my blade freed her other arm. She fell forward on my chest, the top of her head just brushing my chin, and choked out, “Oh, Nick . . . Candy . . . Candy . . . It’s my fault . . . It’s my fault . . .”

  “No it isn’t,” I said, trying to comfort her at the same time I was supporting her with one arm and squatting to cut the ropes around her ankles. Severing the last brutal binding, I stood back up and held her close, saying soothingly, “It isn’t anyone’s fault. Candy couldn’t help herself. Abdul had her convinced that Hassan was responsible—”

  “No! No! No! You don’t understand,” she sobbed leaning back to pound her tiny clenched fists on my chest. “It’s my fault she’s dead. If I hadn’t told that lie about remembering what Hassan had said, she wouldn’t have tried to kill Abdul, and . . . and that never would have happened.” She forced herself to look at the horrible crimson drenched figure sprawled on the bed.

  “That was a lie?” I asked, incredulous. “But I’m sure that’s just what happened. It was the kind of thing Abdul would do,” I motioned with the Beretta toward the Sword, who was lying still. I couldn’t tell whether or not he had passed out. If not, he gave no indication he had heard what Sherima was telling me. “What made you say it, if it never happened?”

  “I could see that you were trying to upset him or distract him so you could perhaps jump him and take his gun away. I thought that if I said what I did, he might look my way, or maybe come after me, and you would have your chance. I never thought that Candy would. Her body convulsed in spasms of wracking sobs again, but I didn’t have time to comfort her. Over the sound of her crying I had heard something else, the whirr of an electric motor, and my brain had whirred with it, remembering the noise that marked the first time I’d opened the door to the CIA hideaway.

  There was no time to be gentle. I shoved Sherima toward the desk and hoped that her legs had regained enough circulation to hold her up. As I spun toward the opening, I saw her, out of the corner of my eye, falling partially behind the cover I had intended her to take.

  That’s when I discovered that the Sword had been feigning unconsciousness. Before the massive concrete barrier was open far enough for his man to walk into the room, he was on his elbows again and shouting a warning in Arabic:

  “Mustapha Bey! Danger! Carter has the gun! Watch out!”

  I flicked a glance in his direction just as he collapsed on the tiles again. The effort to warn his gunman had taken the last of the strength that was ebbing from him as the blood seeped from his wounds. Tense, I waited for the killer to come through the doorway. He didn’t appear, however, and the motor that operated the heavy panel completed its cycle as the door started to close again. A whoosh of air told me when it had sealed off the hideout. We were safe inside, but I knew I had to get out. I looked at my watch. Six-twenty. Hard to believe that so much had happened since six o’clock, when the Sword had dispatched his henchman Selim back to the embassy. Even more difficult to believe was the fact that I had to get Sherima out of there and have her at the Secretary of State’s pied-a-terre in just about ninety minutes.

  Selim, I knew, had instructions not to contact his cohorts in Sidi Hassan until he heard from the Sword. I had delayed that part of the plan, all right, but there was no way I could stop the Shah from expecting Sherima’s voice over the radio. And ready to keep me from getting her there was a professional killer. I had his automatic rifle, but still unaccounted for was the silencer-equipped .38 that very efficiently had knocked off two CIA agents with well-placed shots. I had him outweighed with firepower, having also retrieved my Luger, but he had the advantage of being able to wait for me to come out the only exit from the hidden room. Also, I had a deadline to meet, and he didn’t.

  I should have had help waiting outside—Hawk’s men must have arrived by now—but they would be under orders not to interfere unless it appeared obvious I needed assistance. And there was no way of communicating with them from a soundproof room.

  My contemplation of the odds facing me was suddenly interrupted by a quivering voice behind me: “Nick, is it all right to come out now?”

  I had forgotten the former Queen, whom I had shoved roughly to the floor. “Yes, Your Highness,” I told her, chuckling. “And for Pete’s sake, find your clothes. I have enough on my mind without being distracted by your loveliness.”

  After I said it I was sorry I had used the word lovely.

  It brought back memories of the beautiful woman who had laughed and loved with me, and who was now a bullet-butchered hunk of meat in the corner. It was my turn to hold down the gorge rising inside me.

  Chapter 13

  Sherima found the negligee she had worn when they had carried her off, but not her mink coat. We decided that someone probably had taken it away after they moved her into the basement. She couldn’t remember much of what happened, probably because the tranquilizers Candy had given her were of much greater potency than she had supposed.

  It was hard to keep my eyes from enjoying the golden curves of Sherima’s diminutive figure under the filmy lingerie as she hastily, told me that she recalled, vaguely, being awakened abruptly by Abdul, who told her something about somebody trying to harm her, and that he had to take her away, obviously without anyone knowing about it. One of his men m
ust have been with him, because she had a recollection of two people supporting her as she got in the limousine.

  Beyond that point, she remembered nothing else, except waking later to find herself tied to the wall, nude. The one whose name we now knew was Mustapha had been running his hands over her body. She obviously didn’t want to talk about that part of her ordeal and passed over it quickly, going on to explain that Abdul eventually had arrived with Selim from the embassy. Her former bodyguard hadn’t bothered to answer her questions and just laughed when she ordered him to set her free.

  “He just said that soon I wouldn’t have anything more to worry about,” Sherima recalled with a shudder, “and I knew what he meant.”

  As she talked, I examined the Sword and found that he was still out cold. I tore a strip from the bottom of Sherima’s negligee and bound up his wounds to stop the blood that still oozed from them. He would live, if I could get him out of there soon and he received medical attention. But it was obvious he wouldn’t be able to do much anymore with his hands, even if his wrists were rebuilt. And extensive surgery would be needed to turn those shattered kneecaps into something that might permit him to even drag himself around as a cripple.

  I didn’t know how long Mustapha would wait outside, knowing that his leader had become my prisoner. If he were as fanatical as most of the Sword’s men, I figured, he wouldn’t do the sensible thing and make a getaway. His only two courses of action would be either to try to get in and rescue Abdul, or sit there and wait for me to try to get out.

  I slipped out of my jacket, then told Sherima, “Get down behind that desk again. I’m going to open the door and see what our friend does. He may just come in shooting, and where you’re standing now is right in the line of fire.”