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  Her apartment was small, but lavishly furnished in good taste and in an expensive neighborhood. He judged that she did not lack for money.

  After a moment she left him in the living room and disappeared. He had just lit a cigarette, frowning and having second thoughts — hating himself for them — but there were three more sessions of this goddamned silly seminar and he was under orders to attend and it just could be strained and awkward. What in hell had he gotten himself into?

  He looked up. She, was standing in the door, naked. And he had been right. Under the frumpy clothes there had been, all along, this glorious, white, slim-flanked, gently curving, high-breasted body.

  She smiled at him. He noticed that she had put on lipstick. And not only on her mouth; she had rouged her small nipples as well.

  "I have decided," she said. "To hell with the evening gown! I'm not going to need it tonight, either. I never did like nightclubs."

  Nick, without taking his eyes off her, stubbed out his cigarette and took off his jacket.

  She came toward him, undulant, not so much walking as gliding over the deep pile. She stopped about six feet from him.

  "Do you like me this way, Nick?"

  He could not understand why his throat was so dry. It wasn't as though he were some teenager having his first woman. He was Nick Carter! Top man for AXE. Professional agent, licensed killer of his country's enemies, veteran of a thousand boudoir bouts.

  She put her hands on slim hips and pirouetted gracefully before him. Light from a single lamp shimmered along her inner thighs. The flesh was translucent marble.

  "Do you really like me this way, Nick?"

  "I love you that way." He began to pull off his clothes.

  "You're sure? Some men don't like naked women. I can put on stockings if you like. Black stockings? A garter belt? A bra?"

  He kicked a last shoe across the living room. He had never been more ready in his life and he needed nothing but to meld his flesh with the flesh of this dowdy little teacher of sex who bad suddenly turned into the golden girl after all.

  He reached for her. She came into his arms eagerly, her mouth seeking his, her tongue slashing at his own. Her body was both cool and burning and it trembled all along the length of his.

  After a moment she pulled away enough to whisper. "I'll bet, Mr. Carter, that you don't go to sleep during this lecture!"

  He made to pick her up, to carry her into the bedroom.

  "No," said Dr. Murial Milholland. "Not the bedroom. Right here on the floor."

  Chapter 2

  Delia Stokes ushered the two Englishmen into Hawk's office at precisely eleven-thirty. Hawk had expected Cecil Aubrey to be on time. They were old acquaintances and he had never know the big Britisher to be late for anything. Aubrey was a big-shouldered man in his early sixties and only now beginning to show traces of a small potbelly. He would still be a tough man in a fight.

  Cecil Aubrey was top man in Britain's MI6, that famous counterespionage organization for which Hawk had a great deal of professional respect. The fact that he had come in person to AXE's dingy quarters, come begging as it were, would have convinced Hawk — had he not already suspected — that the matter was of prime importance. At least to the British, So Hawk was prepared to do a little shrewd horse trading.

  If Aubrey felt any surprise at the cramped meagerness of Hawk's quarters he concealed it well. Hawk knew that he did not dwell in the splendor of Whitehall or Langley, and he did not care. His budget was tight and he preferred to put every working dollar into actual operations and let the façade decay if it must. The fact was that AXE was in more than financial trouble at the moment. There had been a spate of bad luck, as sometimes happened, and Hawk had lost three top agents in a month. Dead. A cut throat in Istanbul; knife in the back in Paris; one found in Hong Kong harbor, so bloated and fish eaten that death cause was hard to establish. At the moment Hawk had only two Killmasters left. Number Five, a fledgling he did not want to risk on a rough mission, and Nick Carter. Top man. On this upcoming mission he was going to have to use Nick. It was one of the reasons he had sent him to that nutty school, to keep him nearby.

  The amenities were brief. Cecil Aubrey introduced his companion as a Henry Terence. Terence, it appeared, was MI5 working in close liaison with Aubrey and MI6. He was a lank man with a dour Scot's face and a tic in his' left eye. He smoked an odoriferous cutty pipe that made Hawk actually light a cigar in self-defense.

  Hawk twitted Aubrey about his upcoming knighthood. One of the things that would have surprised Nick Carter about his boss was that the old man read the honors list.

  Aubrey laughed a little uncomfortably and brushed it aside. "Ruddy nuisance, you know. Rather puts one in a class with the Beatles. But one can hardly refuse. Anyway, David, I didn't fly the Atlantic to talk about any bloody knighthood."

  Hawk puffed a blue stream at the ceiling. He really didn't like to smoke cigars.

  "I didn't think you did, Cecil. You want something from me. From AXE. You always do. That means you're in trouble. Tell me about it and we'll see what can be done."

  Delia Stokes brought in another chair for Terence. He sat in a corner, perched like a crow on a crag, and said nothing.

  "It's Richard Philston," said Cecil Aubrey. "We've had a strong clue that he's coming out of Russia at last. We want him, David. How we want him! And this may be our only chance."

  Even Hawk was shaken. He had known that when Aubrey came hat in hand it was something big — but this big! Richard Philston! His second thought was that the English would be prepared to give away quite a lot for help in getting Philston. Yet he kept his face serene. Not a wrinkle betrayed his excitement.

  "It must be a bad steer," he said. "Maybe a false plant for some reason. Philston would never come out of Russia. The man is no idiot, Cecil. We both know that. We should. He fooled us all for thirty years."

  From the corner Terence growled some Scot's malediction deep in his throat. Hawk could sympathize. Richard Philston had made the Yanks look pretty silly — for a time he had actually served as chief of British intelligence in Washington, pulling the wool successfully over the eyes of the FBI and CIA — but he had made his own people, the English, look like absolute morons. Once he had even been suspected, tried, cleared, and had immediately gone back to spying for the Russians.

  Yes. Hawk could understand how badly the British wanted Richard Philston.

  Aubrey shook his head. "No, David. I don't think it's a bad steer or a plant. Because we've got something else to go with it — there is some sort of deal being arranged between the Kremlin and Peking. Something very, very big! This we are sure of. At the moment we have a very good man in the Kremlin, tops in every respect, as good as Penkovskiy ever was. He's never been wrong and now he tells us that the Kremlin and Peking are cooking up a stew that might damned well blow the lid off. But to do it they, the Russians, will have to use their best man. Who else but Philston?"

  David Hawk stripped cellophane from a new cigar. He watched Aubrey narrowly, his own withered face as impassive as a scarecrow.

  He said: "But your big man in the Kremlin doesn't know what the Chinese and the Russians are planning? Is that it?"

  Aubrey looked slightly miserable. "Yes. That's it. But we know where. Japan."

  Hawk smiled. "You people have a good network in Japan. I happen to know that. Why can't they handle it?"

  Cecil Aubrey left his chair and began to pace the narrow room. At the moment he reminded Hawk, absurdly, of the character actor who had played Watson to Basil Rathbone's Holmes. Hawk could never remember the man's name. Yet he did not underestimate Cecil Aubrey. Never. The man was good. Maybe even as good as Hawk himself.

  Aubrey stopped pacing and towered over Hawk's desk. "For the excellent reason," he exploded, "that Philston is Philston! He ran my department for years, man! He knows every code, or did. It doesn't matter. This isn't a matter of codes or rigmarole like that. But he knows our ploys, our methods of organization, our
MO — damn it, he knows everything about us. He even knows a lot of our men, at least the old-timers. And I daresay he keeps a file updated — the Kremlin must be making him earn his keep — and so he'll know a lot of our new men, too. No, David. We can't do it. It needs an outsider, another service. Will you help us?"

  Hawk studied his old friend for a long time. Finally he said, "You know about AXE, Cecil. Officially you're not supposed to, but you do. And you come to me. To AXE. You want Philston killed?"

  Terence broke his Scot's taciturnity long enough to growl. "Yes, mon. That's exactly what we do want."

  Aubrey paid no attention to his subordinate. He sat down again and lit a cigarette with fingers that, Hawk noted with some small surprise, were trembling slightly. He was puzzled. It took a lot to unnerve Aubrey. It was then that Hawk first distinctly heard the clicking of wheels within wheels — for which he had been listening.

  Aubrey pointed the cigarette like a smoky wand. "For our ears, David. In this room and for our six ears only — yes, I want Richard Philston killed."

  Something moved in the back of Hawk's brain. Something that clung to shadow and would not be hauled into light. A long ago whisper? Rumor? Press story? Men's room joke? What in hell? He could not summon it. So he pushed it back to be fallow in his subconscious. It would emerge when it was ready.

  Meantime he put into words what was so obvious. "You want him dead, Cecil. But your government, the Powers, they don't? They want him alive. They want him caught and taken back to England to stand trial and be hanged in the proper manner. Isn't that it, Cecil?"

  Aubrey met Hawk's glance squarely. "Yes, David. That's it. The PM — it's gone that high — agrees that Philston should be taken if possible and brought to England to stand trial. This was decided on quite some time ago. I was put in charge. Until now, with Philston safe in Russia, there has been nothing to-be in charge of. But now, by God, he's coming out, or we think he is, and I want him. God, David, how I want him!"

  "Dead?"

  "Yes. Dead. The PM, Parliament, even some of my superiors, aren't professionals the way we are, David. They think it's a simple thing to catch a man as slippery as Philston and get him back to England. I don't. There will be too many complications, too many chances for slip-ups, too many opportunities for him to escape again. He isn't alone, you know. The Russians won't just stand by and let us arrest him and take him back to England. They'll kill him first! He knows too much about them, he'll try to make a deal, and they know that. No, David. It's got to be a straight kill job and you're the only one I can turn to."

  Hawk said it more to clear the air, to have it said, than because he cared. He ran AXE. And why wouldn't that elusive thought, that shadow skulking in his brain, come into the light? Had it been so scandalous that it had to bury itself?

  He said, "If I agree to this, Cecil, it certainly must remain between the three of us. One hint that I'm using AXE to do someone else's dirty work and Congress will be yelling for my head on a platter. They would get it, too, if they could prove it."

  "You'll do it, David?"

  Hawk stared at his old Friend. "I really don't know yet. What is going to be in it for me? For AXE? Our fees for this sort of thing come high, Cecil. There will be a very high quid pro quo — a very big tit for tat. You realize that?"

  Aubrey looked miserable again. Miserable but resolute. "I realize that. I expected it, David. I'm not an amateur, man. I expect to pay."

  Hawk took a fresh cigar from the box on his desk. He did not look at Aubrey for the moment. He found himself hoping most devoutly, that the debugging crew — they made a thorough sweep of AXE headquarters every two days — had done their job well, Because if Aubrey would meet his terms, Hawk had decided to take on the job. To do MI6's dirty work for them. It would be a kill mission and probably not as difficult to execute as Aubrey imagined. Not for Nick Carter. But Aubrey would have to pay his price.

  "Cecil," Hawk said mildly, "I think that maybe we can do a deal. But I'll want the name of that man you've got in the Kremlin. I promise that I won't try to contact him, but I'll have to know his name. And I want an equal, full share of everything he sends out. In other words, Cecil, your man in the Kremlin will also be my man in the Kremlin! Do you agree to that?"

  In his corner Terence made a strangled sound. He seemed to have swallowed his cutty pipe.

  It was quiet in the little office. The Western Union clock ticked with a tiger sound. Hawk waited. He knew what Cecil Aubrey was going through.

  A top agent, an unsuspected man in Kremlin high circles, was worth more than all the gold and jewels in the world. All the platinum. All the uranium. To make such a contact, to keep it fruitful and unsuspected, took years of arduous work and all the luck there was. It was, on the face of it. impossible. Yet it had been done once. Penkovskiy. Until at last he had slipped and they shot him. Now Aubrey was saying — and Hawk believed him — the MI6 had another Penkovskiy in the Kremlin. Hawk happened to know that the United States did not. The CIA had been trying for years and had never made it. Hawk waited patiently. It was quite a plum. He could not quite believe that Aubrey would go along.'

  Aubrey nearly choked but he got the words out. "All right, David. It's a deal. You drive a hard bargain, man."

  Terence was regarding Hawk with something very akin to awe, and most certainly respect. Terence was a Scot who knew another Scot, at least by inclination if not blood, when he saw him.

  "You understand," said Aubrey, "that I'll have to have some absolute proof that Richard Philston is dead."

  Hawk's smile was dry. "I think that can be arranged, Cecil. Though I can hardly have him killed in Times Square, even if we could get him there. How about sending his ears, neatly done up, to your office in London?"

  "Seriously, David."

  Hawk nodded. "Photographs do?"

  "If they're good. I would prefer, if possible, a finger for prints. It will be absolute that way."

  Hawk nodded again. It would not be the first time Nick Carter had brought home a souvenir.

  Cecil Aubrey motioned to the quiet man in the corner. "All right, Terence. You can take over now. Explain just what we've got so far and why we think Philston is coming out."

  To Hawk he said, "Terence is MI5, as I said, and he is handling the superficial aspects of this Peking-Kremlin thing. I say superficial because we think it is a front, a cover, for something bigger. Terence..."

  The Scot took the foul pipe from between large brown teeth. "It's as Mr. Aubrey says, sir. The wee bit of information we've got so far, but this we're sure of, is that the Russians are sending Philston to help the Chicoms organize a giant sabotage campaign all through Japan. Especially in Tokyo. There they plan to stage a massive blackout, the same as you had yersels not too long back in New York. The Chicoms plan to play almighty hob, you see, and either stop or burn everything in Japan. Most of it, anyway. One story we've had is that Peking insists on Philston running the 'job or no deal. That's why he has to come out of Russia and..."

  Cecil Aubrey broke in. "There's also another story — that Moscow insists that Philston be in charge of the sabotage, so it won't be botched. They don't much trust the Chinese for efficiency. That is still another reason why Philston would have to risk his neck and come out."

  Hawk looked from one man to the other. "Something tells me that you don't buy either story."

  "No," Aubrey said. "We don't. At least I don't. The job just isn't big enough for Philston! Sabotage, yes. Burning down Tokyo, all that, will have a hell of an impact and be a coup for the Chicoms. I agree. But it really isn't Philston's line of work. And not only isn't it big enough, important enough, to entice him out of Russia — I know something about Richard Philston that very few people know. I knew him, remember, worked with him in MI6 when he was riding high. I was just a sub then, but I haven't forgotten a thing about that bloody damned bastard. He was an assassination man! An expert."

  "I'll be damned," Hawk said. "Live and learn. I didn't know that. I alw
ays thought of Philston as a sort of tea-and-crumpets sort of spy. Efficient as hell, deadly, but the striped-pants kind."

  "Not at all," said Aubrey grimly. "He planned a lot of murders. Planned them well, too. That's why I'm certain that if he is coming out of Russia at last it is for something more important than sabotage. Even big-time sabotage. I've got the feeling, David, and you should know what that means. You've been in this business longer than I have."

  Cecil Aubrey went to his chair and sank into it. "Carry on, Terence. Your ball. I'll keep my big mouth shut for a time."

  Terence had reloaded his pipe. To Hawk's relief he did" not light it. Terence said: "The fact is that the Chicoms haven't been doing all their own dirty work, sir. Not very much of it, in fact. They do the planning, but they force the Eta to do the really dirty and bloody jobs. They use terror, of course."

  Hawk must have looked puzzled, for Terence halted a moment, frowned, then went on. "You know about the Eta, sir? Some call them the Burakumin. They're the very lowest cast in Japan, the untouchables. Pariahs. There are more than two million of them and very few people, even Japanese, know that they even exist. The Jap government keeps them in ghettos and out of the sight of tourists. The fact is that the government, up to now, has tried to ignore the problem. The official policy is fure-noi — don't touch. Even though a majority of the Eta are on public relief. It's quite a problem, and naturally the Chicoms are exploiting it lo the utmost. A discontented minority like the Eta — they would be fools not to."

  It all had a familiar ring to Hawk. Ghettos had been very much in the news of late. And the Commies, of one stripe or another, had been doing a little exploiting of minorities in the States.

  "It's a beautiful setup for the Chicoms," he admitted. "The sabotage, especially, carried out under the guise of riots. It's a classic technique — the Commies plan it and let the, this Eta group, carry it out. The Etas get all the blame. But aren't the Eta Japanese? Like all the rest of the country? I mean if there is no color problem, such as we have here and..."