Death of the Falcon Read online

  When she was out of sight, I flicked the switch that moved the concrete panel. The few seconds it took to open seemed like hours and I stayed pressed against the wall, my Luger ready. Nothing happened, however, and I had to find out if the assassin was still lurking in the outer basement.

  Draping my jacket over the barrel of the empty automatic rifle, I edged my way up to the door frame just as it started to swing shut again. Thrusting, the jacket through the narrowing opening, I watched it being torn away from the muzzle of the rifle at the same time I heard two little plops from outside. I jerked the rifle back before the heavy door sealed us in once more.

  “Well, he’s still there, and it looks like he’s not coming in,” I said more to myself than anyone else. Sherima heard me and stuck her head up over the edge of the desk.

  “What are we going to do, Nick?” she asked. “We can’t stay here, can we?”

  She didn’t know how imperative it was that we get out of there as quickly as possible; I hadn’t taken time to explain about her ex-husband and the deadline for raising him on the radio.

  “We’ll get out Don’t worry,” I assured her, not knowing myself just how we were going to do it.

  A sensible person, she kept quiet as I pondered my next move. I was visualizing the portion of the basement that lay outside the doorway. The washer-dryer combination was too far from the door to offer any cover if I risked making a break. The oil burner was against the far wall, near the stairway. It was my guess that Mustapha probably had concealed himself under the steps. From there, he could keep the doorway covered and still be out of sight in case of a surprise assault from above.

  I looked around the CIA’s hideout, hoping to spot something that might help me. One corner of the big room had been walled off to form a small cubicle with its own door. I had assumed earlier that it probably was a bathroom; and crossing to the door, I opened it to find I was right. It held a sink, a toilet, a mirrored medicine cabinet and a stall shower with a plastic curtain across it. The accommodations were simple, but most of the CIA’s guests were short-term ones and likely hadn’t expected quarters to rival those at the Watergate.

  Not really expecting to find anything of value to me, I automatically checked out the medicine cabinet. It was well provisioned, if the person using the hideout were a man. The triple shelves were stocked with toiletries—a safety razor, an aerosol can of shaving cream, a bottle of Old Spice lotion, Bandaids and adhesive tape, plus an assortment of cold pills and antacids, similar to those on the shelves in the bathroom that had been used by the dead agent upstairs. Make that in the limousine trunk outside, since the Sword’s henchman obviously had finished playing undertaker overhead.

  I started to walk out of the bathroom, then turned back as an idea hit me. Working feverishly, I made several trips between the bathroom and the secret doorway, stacking what I needed on the floor beside it. When I was ready, I called Sherima out of her hiding place and briefed her on what she had to do, then shoved the desk across the tiled floor to a spot near the switch that operated the door.

  “Okay, this is it,” I said and she took up her position beside the desk. “Do you know how to use this?” I handed her Candy’s little gun.

  She nodded. “Hassan insisted that I learn how to shoot after the second attack on his life,” she said. “I got pretty good at it, too, especially with my gun.” Her training showed as she checked to see if the pistol were loaded. “It was just like this one. Hassan gave me one and its twin, this one, to Candy. He made her learn how to shoot, too. He never expected that someday—” Her eyes started to fill with tears and she stopped talking.

  “No time for that now, Sherima,” I said.

  She sniffed the tears back, nodding, then bent and scooped up her negligee to wipe them away. At any other moment, I would have appreciated the view, but now I turned to get ready for our escape attempt.

  Picking up the shaving foam can, I took off the top and pressed the nozzle sideways to make certain there was plenty of pressure in the can. The whoosh of the erupting lather told me it seemed to be a new one.

  The shower curtain came next. Wrapping the cheap plastic sheeting around the shaving cream container, I made a wad about the size o? a basketball, then secured it lightly with strips of adhesive tape, making certain it wasn’t packed too tightly, because I wanted air to get between the folds of the curtain. Hefting it in my right hand, I decided it was controllable enough for my purposes.

  “Now,” I said, holding out my right arm to Sherima.

  She took one of the two spare rolls of toilet paper that I had scrounged off a shelf in the bathroom, and while I held it in place, began winding adhesive tape around it, securing it to the inside of my right arm just above the wrist. When it seemed solidly fixed, she did the same thing with the second roll, fastening it along my arm just above the other one. By the time she was finished, I had about four inches of makeshift padding along the entire inside of my arm above the wrist to the elbow. Not enough to stop a bullet, I knew, but, hopefully, of a thickness that might deflect a slug or greatly lessen its impact.

  “I guess that’s it,” I told her, looking around to make certain my other equipment was handy. Suddenly, I stopped short, amazed at my own shortsightedness. “Matches,” I said, looking helplessly at her.

  I knew there were none in my pockets, so I ran to the dead Karim’s side and searched his with my free left hand. No matches. The same was true for Abdul, who groaned as I rolled him over to finger through his pockets.

  “Nick! Here!”

  I turned to Sherima who had been rummaging through the desk drawers. She was holding out one of those disposable lighters. “Does it work?” I asked.

  She flicked the wheel; when nothing happened she groaned, in frustration, not pain.

  “You have to hold down that little catch at the same time,” I said, running to her side as I realized she probably hadn’t seen many such lighters in Adabi. She tried again and couldn’t make it work. I took it from her and flicked the wheel. The flame sprang to life and I blessed the unknown smoker who had forgotten his lighter.

  I kissed Sherima lightly on the cheek for luck as I said, “Let’s get out of here.” She reached for the door switch as I moved back into position, picking up my basketball bomb in my right hand and holding the lighter in the other.

  “Now!”

  She hit the switch and then dropped to the floor behind the desk, gun clutched in her fist. I waited for the whirr of the motor to begin, and when it did, thumbed the lighter. As the door began to swing out, I touched the flame to the plastic wad in my hand. It caught fire immediately, and by the time the door was half open, I had’ a blazing ball in my hand. Stepping up to a point just inside the door frame, I stuck my arm around the opening and heaved the flaming orb toward the spot where I thought Mustapha had to be hidden.

  He had turned out the lights in the basement so as to silhouette anyone coming through the door with the glow from inside. The move worked to his disadvantage, instead; when the flaming wad of plastic suddenly appeared in the darkness, it temporarily blinded him enough to throw off his aim as he fired at my arm.

  One of the .38 slugs tore along the top of the toilet paper roll Closest to my wrist. The second hit the roll nearer to my elbow, was deflected slightly, and ripped through the fleshy part of my arm there. I jerked back my hand as blood started to pour from the angry rip across my arm.

  I couldn’t stop to staunch it. Grabbing the automatic rifle from where I had leaned it against the wall, I jammed it between the door frame and the massive panel itself. I had counted on the door being delicately counter-balanced, so that the rifle would be solid enough to keep it from closing.

  There was no time to see if it was going to work. I had to put the next part of my plan into operation. Since I wasn’t about to stick my head around the door frame to see how effective my lob shot with a ball of fire had been, I used the mirrored door I had removed from the bathroom medicine cabinet. Angling i
t around the frame and fully expecting my makeshift periscope to be cracked by Mustapha’s next bullet, I took a look at the scene outside.

  I had missed my target, the recess behind the basement stairway. Instead, the homemade fireball had landed beside the oil burner. As I watched, Mustapha, obviously fearing that the big heating unit might explode, darted from his hiding place and scooped up the still blazing bundle in both hands, keeping it at arm’s length so the flames wouldn’t singe him. That meant he either had discarded his gun or jammed it back under his belt. I didn’t wait to see anymore. Dropping the mirror, I drew my Luger and stepped outside, realizing as I did that my rifle wedge had been successful in keeping the concrete-sheathed door from closing.

  Mustapha still held the ball of fire, looking desperately around the basement for some place to throw it. Then he spotted me standing before him with a gun leveled, and his already frightened eyes widened further. I could tell he was going to throw the flaming wad at me, so I squeezed the trigger. I never got a chance to see if I hit him.

  The crack of my Luger was lost in the explosion that engulfed the Sword’s co-conspirator. I don’t know whether my slug detonated the pressurized shaving cream can, or if the heat from the blazing plastic touched off the bomb. Maybe it was a combination of both. Mustapha had raised the bundle to toss it my way and the blast caught him full in the face. Knocked to my knees by the force of the explosion, I watched as his features disintegrated. Just as the cellar went dark again—the explosion snuffed out the flames—it appeared to me as if the killer’s eyeballs had turned to liquid and were streaming down his cheeks.

  Shaken, but unhurt, I stumbled to my feet and heard Sherima screaming inside the room that had been her torture chamber not long before.

  “Nick! Nick! Are you all right? What happened?”

  I stepped back into the doorway so she could see me.

  “Score two points for our team,” I said. “Now help me get this stuff off my arm. Everything’s going to be all right.”

  Chapter 14

  The tape that held the blood-soaked rolls of toilet paper to my arm also held my stiletto in place. I had to wait for Sherima to locate a pair of scissors in the desk drawer before she could cut away the crimson tissue. More strips of her sheer negligee became bandages for me and, by the time she had staunched the blood bubbling from the bullet crease, there wasn’t much left of what once had been an expensive piece of lingerie.

  “You’re really going to be a sensation at dinner tonight,” I said, admiring the small, firm breasts that strained against the soft fabric as she worked on my arm. My hasty explanation about her appointment at the Secretary of State’s home in less than an hour brought, I was glad to see, a typically feminine reaction: “Nick,” she gasped. “I can’t go like this!”

  “I’m afraid you’re going to have to do just that. There isn’t time to get back to the Watergate and still have you on the radio by eight o’clock. Now let’s get out of here.”

  She hung back, turning to look first at Candy’s body on the bed, then at the Sword sprawled on the floor. “Nick, what about Candy? We can’t leave her like this.”

  “I’ll have someone take care of her, Sherima. And Abdul, too. Believe me, though, the most important thing right now is to get you on that radio, talking to—”

  “ATTENTION DOWNSTAIRS. THIS HOUSE IS SURROUNDED! COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP! ATTENTION DOWNSTAIRS. THIS HOUSE IS SURROUNDED. COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP.”

  The bullhorn echoed itself again, then was silent. Help had arrived. Hawk’s men must have charged the house when they heard the shaving cream bomb go off and, probably, conducted a room by room search on the upper floors before deciding to bring the squawker to the basement door. They most likely got quite a surprise when they opened it and the acrid haze from the extinguished plastic fire rolled out to them.

  I stepped to the concrete doorway and called out, “This is Nick Carter,” then identified myself as an executive of the oil company that supposedly employed me. There was a lot I hadn’t explained to Sherima yet, and some of it never would be told her. For the moment, it seemed best to revert to the way she originally knew me.

  “I’m down here with . . . with Miss Liz Chanley. We need help. And an ambulance.”

  “STEP THROUGH THE DOORWAY WITH YOUR HANDS UP.”

  I obeyed the bullhorned instructions. One of the AXE agents at the top of the steps recognized me and the cellar quickly filled up with Hawk’s men. It took a few valuable minutes to instruct the leader of the team in what had to be done at the house, then I said, “I need a car.”

  He handed over his keys and told me where his car was parked. “Do you need someone to drive you?”

  “No. We’ll make it.” I turned to Sherima and offered her my arm, saying, “Shall we go, Your Highness?”

  Every bit the Queen again, despite wearing a royal gown that was shredded halfway up her thighs and left little to the imagination, she took my arm. “We are pleased to retire now, Mr. Carter.”

  “Yes ma’am,” I. said and led her past the bewildered AXE agents who were already working on the Sword. They were trying to bring him back to consciousness before the ambulance arrived that would take him to the little private hospital Hawk had liberally endowed with agency funds so that he was assured a special ward for patients in whom he had an interest. Sherima stopped at the door as she heard him groan again and turned just as his eyes opened and he stared at her.

  “Abdul, you’re fired,” she said grandly, then swept out of the hideaway and up the stairs ahead of me.

  As the Secretary of State and Hawk appeared from the richly paneled library doorway, I got to my feet. The canopied porter’s chair had been comfortable and I had almost dozed off. The Secretary spoke briefly with the Old Man, then went back into the room where his powerful transmitter was located. Hawk crossed to my side.

  “We wanted to give her a couple of minutes of privacy on the radio with him,” he said. “At least as much privacy as there can be, what with monitoring equipment being what it is today.”

  “How did it go?” I asked.

  It all had been pretty formal, he said, complete with a polite, “How are you?” and, “Is everything all right?”

  I wondered just how formal the whole picture would have looked to him if I hadn’t checked the hall closet on our way out of the CIA’s safe house and found Sherima’s mink coat stashed there. The Secretary had offered to help her off with it when we arrived, but Sherima kept it clutched around her, explaining that she had taken a chill en route there and would keep it on a while, then followed the Secretary into the library as the grandfather clock in his entrance hall struck eight times.

  During the period that had passed since then, I had told Hawk what occurred in the house on Military Road. He had been on the phone several times, issuing instructions and following up on reports from the various units he had assigned to special tasks after I completed my story. The Secretary had a scrambler line that connected directly with Hawk’s office, and the Old Man’s instructions had been relayed through our communications network over it.

  Hawk went to make another call and I slumped back in the big antique wicker chair again. When he returned, I could tell the news was good, because the slight smile by which he expressed extreme pleasure was there.

  “The Sword is going to be all right,” Hawk said. “We’re going to get him back on his feet and then ship him off to Shah Hassan as a token of our mutual friendship.”

  “What do we get in return?” I asked, suspicious of such generosity on the part of my boss.

  “Well, N3, we’ve decided to suggest that it would be nice if the Shah were just to return some of those little presents the boys in the Pentagon have been slipping him when nobody was looking.”

  “Will he go along with it?”

  “I think so. From what I’ve just overheard in the library, I think the Shah will be giving up his throne soon. That means his brother will be taking over, and I don’
t think Hassan wants anyone else to have his finger on the trigger of those playthings. I gather another divorce may be in the offing, too, and—”

  He turned at the sound of the library door opening again. Sherima came out, followed by the Secretary of State, who was saying, “Well, my dear, I guess we can go in to dinner, finally. I’ve had the heat turned up in the dining room, so I’m sure you won’t need your coat now.”

  As he reached out to take it, 1 started to laugh. Sherima flashed me a smile and winked, then turned so she could slip out of the mink. Embarrassed, Hawk nudged me and said reprimandingly under his breath, “What are you chuckling at, N3? They’ll hear you.”

  “It’s a secret, sir. We’ve all got one.”

  As the long coat came off Sherima’s shoulders, it was as though the Silver Falcon had shed her wings. As she walked regally toward the candlelit dining room, my secret was exposed. And so were hers.

  The End

  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