A Korean Tiger

Chapter 3

During the drive to Laurel in the chauffeur-driven Cadillac that Hawk had requisitioned, his chief expounded on a point which, in the ordinary course of things, would not have concerned Nick Carter.

As they left D.C. behind and entered Maryland Hawk said: "I know that normally you leave politics to the politicians, son, but have you been keeping up with the current hassle about the CIA?"

Nick, thinking briefly of Peg Tyler's marvelous breasts and thighs, admitted that he had not, recently, so much as glanced at a newspaper.

"I didn't think so." Hawk's tone was sardonic. "But for your information certain Congressmen, and Senators, are raising a hell of a stink. They think CIA has too much autonomy, and they want to do something about it, bring the agency under tighter supervision."

Nick grinned as he tapped a cigarette on his thumbnail. "Any Congressman that wants to do that can't be all bad. Those meatheads can use a little supervision, I'd say. Their fumbling damned near got me killed in Mexico this last jaunt."[2]

Hawk rolled down a window. He decorated the serene, rolling Maryland landscape with a beat-up cigar. "The point is — that if they succeed in supervising the CIA then we're next. AXE! The CIA can function in the limelight, but we can't! I won't even try. The day Congress comes poking its nose in the affairs of AXE is the day I resign. Anything like that would ruin us overnight. We might as well take a front page ad in The New York Times!"

Nick remained silent. It was a tempest in a teapot. He doubted that Congress would be allowed to investigate AXE and, even if it did, that Hawk would resign. The old man was too firmly wedded to his job for that. The only way Hawk would ever quit was by mandate of the retirement law — even then they would have to bind him and carry him, kicking and screaming, from his little office.

But it turned out that Hawk was not merely fuming. He was making a point. Now he said: "I know, and you know, that we always operate under cover, in the 'black' and with top secrecy. I don't have to tell you that."

"But you are telling me, sir. Why?"

His boss pulled the cellophane off a fresh cigar. "Just to remind you. And maybe help you a little. Normal secrecy and precautions, which are usually tight in any case, are being doubled and tripled in this Bennett thing. We, AXE and all the other agencies involved, have slammed a total blackout on this matter. All over the world. If the press ever gets hold of it we're dead. All of us, but especially AXE. Just because Bennett worked for us last!" Hawk bit off the end of his cigar and spat it out the window. "Damn it to hell! Why couldn't the bastard have ended up in Agriculture, or Commerce — any place but us!"

Killmaster had to admit that there was some reason for Hawk's trepidation. If the newspapers ever sniffed the scent, ever found out that a Commie agent had been able to lie doggo in Washington for thirty years, to be discovered only after he had made the mistake of murdering his wife, there was going to be a lot of undiluted hell to pay. It could blow the dome right off the Capitol!

They were in the outskirts of the little town of Laurel now. The chauffeur seemed to know where he was going. As the big limousine turned off U.S. 1 and headed for the business section Hawk said, "I've been out here once before. As soon as the FBI boys started checking and found out that Bennett worked for us they called me. But I want you to see for yourself. That's why I haven't explained more — your first impressions might be valuable. Might help you catch Bennett. He was a real kook, a concealed kook, and I've got a hunch that you're the only man who has a chance of catching him." Hawk glanced at his watch and groaned. "Unless, of course, he's having dinner in the Kremlin about now."

"Maybe he hasn't made it yet," Nick consoled. "Even if he's running in that direction. You've shot the works on this, I take it? The complete bit?"

Hawk nodded. "Yes. Of course. That's really our- only chance — that he's been forced to hide, go to ground and wait until things cool off a bit. They won't, of course, not until we get him. But he might not know that. I said he's not really very bright. But I've got the net out — our people, the CIA, the FBI, Scotland Yard, the Sureté, Interpol — you name it and I've done it. Of course there's a risk there, too, but I had to take it."

Nick understood. With so many working on a case the chances of a leak increased almost geometrically. It was, as his boss said, a chance they must take.

They had left the downtown section behind now and were again heading north. To their right was the Laurel Race Track. Nick remembered it well. He had lost a few hundred there on a long-ago weekend. What had been her name — Jane? Joan? Debbie? Mary? Lou Ann! That was it. Lou Ann somebody or other. A happy little blonde girl who had won consistently while Nick hadn't been able to pick a winner. Nick grinned to himself as he recalled something else — Lou Ann had had a thing about brassieres and refused to wear them. The result, as he recalled it now, had been a little spectacular.

Hawk shattered his pleasant little reverie. "Here we are. Just down this street."

Nick caught a glimpse of a blue and white street sign as the big car wheeled off the pavement onto an oiled dirt road. Bond Mill Road. Nick sighed, banished the ghost of the happy little blonde, and came alert.

It seemed a pleasant enough little suburb, not a recent subdivision, and the builders had left some fine old trees. The houses, in the twenty-five or thirty thousand dollar class, were well spaced. School was not yet out and at this hour there was a paucity of children, though their spoor was everywhere in the form of bikes, wagons, jungle gyms and various other impedimenta. A typical scene of American peace and tranquility, in this case enhanced by a faint breeze from Chesapeake Bay and the golden patina of Maryland sun.

"In a place like this," Nick said, "a murder must really set them on their ear."

"You can say that again," Hawk growled. "But in a way all the excitement helped us. Thank God the FBI called me in time. I got them to go sub rosa on it and the Laurel cops were very cooperative once they knew the score. With the FBI underground the papers haven't smelled a thing yet. They think it's just another wife murder. The usual thing — that Bennett killed his fat ugly old wife and ran off with another woman. We've got to keep them thinking along those lines." With fervor he added, "The story has been buried for the past few days. I hope to God it stays that way."

Nick chuckled and lit a cigarette. "Amen."

The limousine pulled off the road through a narrow wooden gate set in a white rail fence that needed paint. They followed a gravel drive around behind a small Cape Cod-type house. There was a ramshackle one-car garage also needing paint. The car stopped and Hawk and Nick got out. Hawk told the chauffeur to wait and they walked around to the front of the little house. A variety of flower beds, once carefully tended and now choked with weeds, bordered the flagstone walk.

Nick glanced over the grounds. "Bennett had quite a lot of land here."

"Couple of acres. Lot of land, not much house. Spent what money he had on privacy. He didn't want people living too close to him."

They rounded the front of the house and approached a small, screened porch. A big cop put down a magazine and disentangled himself from a metal chair. He had a red face and a growl like a bulldog. "Who are you? What do you want here?"

Hawk flashed a gold Presidential Pass. AXE did not exist for the ordinary American public. The cop looked at the pass and his manner became most respectful. But he said: "The house is sealed, sir. I don't know about…"

Hawk gave the cop a hard stare. Nick watched with a concealed grin. Hawk could be pretty terrifying at times.

Hawk nodded at Nick. "Slip that seal, Nick. Take it easy. We'll want to leave it intact."

The cop began to protest again. "But, sir! I don't think… I mean my orders are to…"

As Nick went deftly to work on the metal seal on the screen door he listened to Hawk putting the cop straight.

"Just two things," Hawk was saying. "Just two things mat you got to remember to forget, Officer. Forget is the operative word. Forget you ever saw that gold pass — and forget you ever saw us! You don't forget them, you ever mention them to anybody on this earth, and your name will be mud until the day you die! You got that, Officer?"

"Y-yes, sir. I got it, sir."

Hawk nodded brusquely. "You damned well better. Now get back to your girlie book and forget us. We'll leave everything just the way we found it."

By this time Nick had finagled the seal, unbroken, and he and Hawk went into the house. It was stifling, muggy and humid, the smell of dust mingling with a ghost of old furniture polish — and just a trace of the rotten, sickly sweet effluvia of death. Nick sniffed.

Hawk said: "She was dead a little over a week before they found her. This place is going to need fumigating before they can sell it."

He led the way down a narrow, cheaply carpeted hallway. Nick glanced to his left, into the living room, and did not waste a second glance. Furniture that was strictly Grand Rapids, purchased on credit, done in what some wag had once called "early American stupid." A TV set in a dark plastic cabinet, a rump-sprung sofa, a scarred coffee table heaped with old magazines. A few bad copies of bad pictures on the puce walls.

"The Ivans couldn't have been paying Bennett much," he told Hawk. "Or the guy isn't so dumb after all — at least he didn't make the big mistake most of them do."

Hawk nodded. He was opening a padlock on a basement door. "No. He didn't spend any money. That's part of the puzzle, son. It might be the reason he got away with it for so long — or maybe the Russians just never paid him!"

Nick Carter frowned. "In that case Bennett was, is, a really dedicated Commie? Working for nothing!"

Hawk chewed his dead cigar and mumbled around it. "Wait and see. I think the guy was a really dedicated nut, but maybe you can come up with some fresh ideas."

The basement door came open. Nick followed the older man down a steep flight of unpainted wooden stairs. Hawk reached for a dangling cord and pulled on an overhead light. The 100-watt bulb was unshielded and revealed the small basement in a pitiless glare. In one corner was a small oil furnace and a tank; in the other corner were tubs and a washer and dryer.

"Over here," said Hawk. He led Nick to the far wall of the basement, opposite the foot of the stairs. He pointed out dark, circular scars on the concrete floor. "Used to have an old coal furnace, see. Stood right here. And in here was the coal bin. Good job, eh? The FBI thinks Bennett did it all himself. They've got a theory that even his wife didn't know about it."

Hawk was tapping the roughly finished concrete wall with the back of his hand. He smiled at Nick. "Feel it It looks natural enough, innocent, but feel it."

Nick touched the concrete and felt it give slightly. He looked at his boss. "Plywood? Wallboard, something like that. He smeared a thin layer of concrete over it?"

"Right Watch now."

After a moment's searching Hawk pressed his finger against one of the trowel marks on the concrete. The section of wall opened, turning on some concealed vertical axis, leaving a gap wide enough for a man to slip through. Hawk stepped back. "After you, son. The light switch is just to your right."

Nick stepped into the darkness and fumbled for the light Hawk followed, brushing against him, pulling the section of wall shut. Nick found the switch and flicked it The little room glowed with subdued golden light.

The first thing Nick Carter noticed was the large painting above the desk. Done in garish, violent color, it shrieked in the silence of the hidden room. Nick went closer, peering, saw a small brass plate screwed into the frame.

The Rape.

A young girl lay on her back in a tangle of tall weeds. She lay with her head back, her mouth twisted in anguish, her long blonde hair flowing into the surrounding sea of weeds. Half a black brassiere had been ripped away to expose one small soft breast. Her dress had been torn off, though tattered remnants still clung around her tiny waist. She wore panties, torn at the crotch, and a garter belt with broad black straps leading down to torn stockings. Her white legs were flung wide, one knee raised, and there were bloody smears on the inside of her thighs. Near her feet, nearly out of the picture, was a single high-heeled red slipper lying on its side.

Nick Carter whistled softly. Hawk was standing back in the shadows, saying nothing. Nick said: "Bennett do this?"

"I think so. His hobby was painting."

Carter nodded. "Not bad. Raw, but with power. Graphic enough. A psychiatrist could get a lot out of this picture — too bad I'm not one."

Hawk merely grunted. "You don't have to be a head shrinker to know that Raymond Lee Bennett was, or is, a real character. Go ahead. Look around and draw your own conclusions. That's why we came here. I want you to get it firsthand. I'll keep out of it until you're finished."

Killmaster, with a skill born of long practice, began to go over the room. To a casual onlooker, one who did not know Nick Carter, his methods might have appeared indolent, even slovenly. But he missed nothing. He seldom touched anything, but his eyes — strange eyes that could change color like a chameleon — roved incessantly and fed back a constant stream of information to the brain behind the high forehead.

Bookshelves formed one entire wall of the little room. Nick cast a knowing eye past the spines of scores of paperback and hard-cover books. "Bennett was a mystery fan," he told the silent Hawk. "Also a spy buff — that figures in a way, I think. There is everything here from Anna Katherine Green through Gaboriau and Doyle to Ambler and LeCarré. The best and the worst Maybe the guy used them as handbooks for his profession."

"Keep going," Hawk muttered. "You haven't seen anything yet. The FBI brought in a psychologist and let him roam around. He didn't seem to get far — acted a little put out because Bennett wasn't around to take a Rorschach test".

Nick pulled open the top drawer of the desk. "Hummmm — this is pretty good pornography. Expensive, too. Maybe that's where his money went."

"Pornography? The FBI didn't tell me anything about any pornography!" Hawk came out of the shadows to gaze over Nick's shoulder.

Nick chuckled. "Better watch it, sir. You're a little old for this high-voltage stuff. And weren't you going to the doctor for blood pressure a little while back?"

"Hah!" Hawk reached to take one of the glossy prints from Nick. He studied it with a frown. He shook his head. "It can't be done. Not like that. It's physically impossible."

The print in question involved three women, a man, and a dog. Nick gently took the picture from Hawk and reversed it. "You had it upside down, sir."

"The hell I did!" Hawk studied the picture again. "Damned if I didn't, at that. Hummm — this way it's just possible." He scaled the print back into the drawer and nodded at a steel cabinet standing in one corner of the room. "Take a look in that." He went back into the shadows near the wall.

Nick opened the cabinet. The contents were intriguing, to say the least. Nick lit a cigarette and studied them with a half smile and half frown. Maybe Raymond Lee Bennett wasn't very bright, or too well endowed physically, but he was certainly a chap of many facets. Most of them on the oddball side.

On hooks in one corner of the cabinet was a collection of women's girdles, corsets, and garter belts. Some of the garments had long stockings attached to them. On the floor of the cabinet were women's shoes with extremely high spike heels and one pair of high-heeled patent leather boots that buttoned to the knee.

Nick whistled again, softly. "Our boy was a fetishist from way back, it seems."

Hawk was sour. "That's what the FBI psychologist said in his report. So where does that get us?"

Nick was cheerful. He was thoroughly enjoying himself. More important, he was beginning to get an inkling, some faint foreshadowing, of what Raymond Lee Bennett was really like.

He took a collection of dog whips from a shelf in the steel cabinet. Also a slender quirt of braided leather. "Bennett liked to whip people. Probably women. Without doubt women. Hmmm — but where could he find any women to whip? Living in a place like this, and looking the way he did? Not that his looks would work against him in the sort of sexual underworld he obviously wanted, liked, to move in. Did move in — or did he? Maybe he didn't. Couldn't. In Baltimore, sure. Maybe even in Washington, these days. But that would have been risky as hell — sooner or later he would have gotten caught, in trouble, and his cover would have been blown. But he was never blown. This neat little suburban fraud of his was never penetrated until he blew it himself."

Nick dropped his cigarette to the floor and stepped on the stub. As he did so he noticed the chalked outline on the drab brown linoleum. The chalk was scuffed and partially erased in places, but the outline still denoted a corpse of considerable heft.

Nick pointed to the chalk marks. "His wife, Hawk!" For once he forgot the "sir" with which he habitually addressed the older man.

Hawk shook his head doubtfully. "You think she did know about this room, then? That she was his companion in the fun and games that went on down here? But that means that she must have known he was working for the Russians, or been working for them herself. And that I won't buy! Two people couldn't have kept that secret for thirty years. One, just maybe. It looks like Bennett did. But not his wife, too."

Nick lit a fresh cigarette. He ran strong fingers through his crisp brown hair. "I agree with you on that, sir. I don't think she knew about the spying bit. She wouldn't have to know. No real reason why she should. But I think she was his sexual companion, if you want to call it that, in the nutty sex games Bennett liked to play. I would bet on it. We won't find them now, because Bennett either destroyed them or took them with him, but I'll bet there was a Polaroid camera around here with a lot of exposed film. Probably he had a timer on it so he could join the lady and take his own pictures."

Hawk, his hands in his pockets, was staring moodily at the desk. "Maybe you're right, Nick. One thing I do know — there's no secret drawer in that desk. The FBI did everything but tear it apart. I trust them on that. They didn't flub it."

"Yes," said Nick. "Bennett probably has them with him. They'll be some consolation on long cold nights when he's hiding out."

"You think the man is a real psycho, Nick?"

"Definitely," said Killmaster. "Though not in any legal sense. I'm beginning to get a pretty clear picture of our Mr. Bennett, and it's a little frightening and a little funny and more than a little pitiful. Look at this."

From another hook in the cabinet Nick took a trenchcoat and a pearl gray snapbrim hat with a large welt. Both looked new. Nick glanced at the maker's tag in the fawn-colored trenchcoat. "Abercrombie & Fitch. The hat is Dobbs. Both expensive and new, hardly worn at all." He hefted the coat. "Something heavy in the pockets."

Hawk took a typed flimsy from his pocket and glanced at it. "Yes. The FBI listed it. Pipe and tobacco, never opened, pipe never used, and a revolver. Banker's Special, never fired."

Nick took the articles in question from the pockets of the trenchcoat and examined them. The pipe tobacco was Douwe Egberts, a Dutch cavendish. The pouch was still sealed. He ran his finger around the inside of the pipe bowl. Shiny clean.

The revolver was a Smith & Wesson with a stubby two-inch barrel — a .38. It would pack a hell of a wallop at very short range. A light film of oil glistened on the weapon. Some of it adhered to Nick's fingers and he wiped them on his trousers.

Hawk said: "Are you thinking what I'm thinking, N3? Something real nutty — like make-believe and pretend and children's games?"

Before he answered, Nick Carter glanced again at the bookshelves containing the mysteries, the spy stories, the stacked assortment of comic books of like tenoi His keen eyes flicked to a little taboret where stood two bottles of scotch and a soda siphon. The seals on the whiskey were intact, the siphon was full.

Hawk followed his glance. "Bennett didn't 6moke or drink."

Finally Killmaster said: "It would make it nice and simple, sir. To decide that Bennett is just a nut who read too many spy stories, saw too much television. A juvenile mentality whose idea of glory was to earn his Junior G-Man's badge. I'll admit a lot of things point that way — but on the other hand a lot of things don't. Kids, even grown-up kids, don't usually take a hatchet to their wives."

"He's a psycho," Hawk grumbled. "A schizo. Split personality. He was a psycho, a nut, all his life. But he kept it pretty well concealed. Then suddenly something triggered him into a psychotic state, and he axed his wife."

Nick knew that his boss was thinking aloud and expecting Killmaster to play the role of devil's advocate. It was a technique they often used on a knotty problem.

"I think you're about half right," he said now. "But only half. You're oversimplifying it, sir. It's all right to say that Bennett was a childish romantic who liked to play at being a spy — but the FBI had turned up evidence that he could have been a real spy. Don't forget the total recall and the camera mind! The man's a walking record of everything important that happened in Washington in the past thirty years."

Hawk grunted and tore the unoffending wrapper from a fresh cigar. "Then why the hell didn't the Kremlin, if it was the Kremlin, ever try to contact him? Why didn't they pay him? It just doesn't make sense that they would plant a guy like Bennett and then not try to milk him over the years. Unless…"

Nick had replaced the trenchcoat and hat in the metal cabinet. He crossed the room and stood looking at a fake fireplace, of imitation red brick, that had been installed in one wall. Behind a cheap brass screen there was a small electric heater with an extension cord leading to a wall socket. Nick picked up the cord and plugged it in. The heater began to glow red.

Before the fireplace was a shabby armchair with torn vinyl upholstery. Nick Carter sank into the chair and extended his long muscular legs to the make-believe flame. He closed his eyes and tried to imagine himself as Raymond Lee Bennett. A dreary little man with a poor physique, not much mouse-colored hair, a bad case of acne scarring an ugly horse face. Very poor equipment with which to face the world. A world in which all the goodies went to the beautiful people, to the brilliant and the clever and the moneyed people. Nick, his eyes still closed, struggling to simulate and attune himself to the pinkish atomic armature underlying the brain of Raymond Lee Bennett — just one brain in billions — began gradually to evolve a hazy picture in his own mind. He could almost savor, nearly taste, the raw juices of defeat. Of frustration and a terrible wanting. A crying out that would not be answered. A soul wanting out of the skimpy body and begging rescue from the ravaged face. A have-not yearning to have. A fuzzy mind, yet conscious of the passage of time and with a horrible awareness of what was being missed. A poor puerile child locked away from the sweets of life.

Such a man — if man was the word — could only have found relief, surcease, in fantasy. Nick opened his eyes and stared at the glowing electric heater. For a moment he became Bennett sitting there, staring at the leaping flames of an apple wood fire, smoking a Sherlock Holmes pipe — no tobacco — and about to have a drink of expensive scotch — the seals on the bottle unbroken. Time was of the essence. Just time for a pipe and a drink before donning the trenchcoat and the snapbrim hat, pocketing the revolver, and going out in search of adventure. Because tonight the game was afoot, great events were in the making, with villains to slay and governments to save and maidens to rescue. Ah, the girls! The fair maidens. All naked and lovely. Busty and silver-thighed. How they smothered a man in their sweet-smelling flesh, clamoring for it, moaning for it, all of them sick with lust.

Fantasy. The secret room and the props and the dreams and time slipping away and the dreaming — the dreaming the dreaming…

Nick sat bolt upright in the chair. "I'll bet that Bennett is impotent!"

Hawk had not moved from his place in the shadows. He looked just the same, and for a moment Nick found that strange; then he knew that only a few seconds had elapsed. His own dreaming had seemed much longer. Now Hawk said: "You bet what?"

Nick left the chair and ran a finger through the thick dust on a barren mantel over the fake fireplace. "That our boy is impotent! He couldn't make it in bed. At least not in the normal way. That's the reason for the whips and the shoes and the girdles and all that stuff. The reason for the pornography. Bennett can't function sexually without some sort of artificial stimuli — maybe he has to be whipped first."

Hawk stared at his Number One boy with an odd mixture of awe and disgust. He moved closer, out of the shadows. "Spare me the Krafft-Ebing bit, for Pete's sake. I didn't bring you down here to look into Bennett's sex life, or lack of it, and I don't care much about his perversions, if any. I thought you might get some ideas…"

"I have," Nick interrupted. "A hell of a lot of them. More than I can use just at the moment. It will take time to sort them out — if it can be done at all. But if Bennett was a spy — and I'm inclined to think he was, in a dilettante sort of way at least — then I think we can expect another woman to turn up in the picture. Sooner or later, when and if we find Bennett, there will be a woman. And she won't be old and fat and ugly! In short, sir, Bennett has stopped depending on fantasy and gone after the real thing. He's suddenly realized that he's fifty-five, retired, and doesn't have too much time left. That's why he killed his wife! She reminded him of too much — of what he no doubt considers a wasted thirty years. And she was in the way! He couldn't just go off and leave her alive. That way he would never really be rid of her. She had to die. He had to kill her. It was Bennett's way of making a clean break, of making positive that he couldn't chicken out and come back home. Back to dreaming instead of action."

Killmaster put a cigarette in his mouth and snapped his lighter. "In a way you have to hand it to the little man — it took a lot of guts, of a sort, to do what he did."

Hawk scratched at the slight graying stubble on his chin. "You've lost me, son. I hope to God you know what you're talking about."

"So do I. The thing is — we'll never really know until we catch Bennett."

"You seen all you want to here?"

"One thing, sir." Nick pointed to the mantel. Hawk came to peer at the spot indicated. There was a thick patina of dust over the entire mantel except for an oval mark some three inches long and two inches wide.

"Something has been taken from this mantel recently," Nick said. "Probably it was the only thing kept on the mantel, and I'd guess that Bennett took it with him, but we'd better check it. Anything on it from the FBI?"

Again Hawk consulted the typed flimsy. "No. They don't even mention the mantel. Or the mark in the dust. They overlooked it, I guess."

Nick sighed and flicked ashes from his cigarette. "I'd like to know what it was. Probably it was the only thing he took from this room — it must have been important."

They left the hidden room. Hawk pushed the pseudocement wall back into place. Going up the steep basement stairs he said, "We'll probably never know unless we catch Bennett. His wife sure isn't going to tell us." The old man sounded very gloomy.

"Cheer up," Nick told him. "I've got a feeling, or call it a hunch, that we're going to catch Bennett. It's not going to be easy, but we'll do it. He's an amateur. He's also a hysteric and a psychotic and a romantic with the IQ of an eight-year-old. But he's not harmless! Far from it. He's deadly — as a child can be deadly. In addition to all that he's carrying those beautiful files around in his brain. I don't think that matters much to Bennett. I don't think he knows how much he knows, if you follow me, sir."

Hawk groaned audibly as he locked the basement door. "I'm not sure, Nick. I'm not sure of anything about this case any more. I'm not even sure there is a case! I keep thinking I'll wake up and find it's all a nightmare."

Killmaster gazed at his boss with a hint of commiseration. It was not like Hawk to be so distraught. Then he remembered that Hawk had been carrying the burden practically alone while he, Carter, was fresh from the beauties of nature and the arms of amour. It made a difference.

As they went through the stifling little house again Nick said, "There's a case, all right. And it might turn out to be a nightmare. But I'll whip it, sir."

The big cop stood up again as they left the house. As Nick was replacing the metal seal, intact, his roving sharp eyes caught a slight alteration in the placid suburban landscape. Something new had been added. Nick turned to the cop and nodded toward a small stand of silver birch some seventy-five yards to the east. "Who's the guy over there in the trees, watching us? He belong around here?"

The cop followed the AXEman's glance. "Oh, him! That's only Mr. Westcott. He lives next door. Snoops a lot. Nosey, sir. It was him that called us in on this case in the first place. Nothing we can do, sir. Those trees are on his property."

"Who said I wanted to do anything?" said Nick mildly. "But I think I will have a word with the gentleman. I'll meet you back at the car, sir." He left Hawk once more putting the fear of God, and the Presidential pass, into the cop and walked toward the little clump of trees.

Mr. Lloyd Westcott was a thin man in his early fifties with a tanned bald head and a small paunch. He wore slacks and a blue sport shirt and a definitely feisty manner. As Nick approached him he was swinging a weed cutter in a half-hearted manner, grubbing at some ragweed around the boles of the trees. It was, Nick conceded, as good an excuse as any for being there.

N3 slipped easily into his winning manner. The AXEman could be most personable when he chose. He smiled at the man. "Mr. Westcott?"

"Yeah. I'm Westcott." The man took a battered briar pipe from between shiny false teeth. "You a cop?"

Nick laughed. "No. Insurance." He handed the man a card from his wallet. The insurance front usually worked in situations like this.

Westcott pursed his lips and frowned at the card, then handed it back to Nick. "Okay. So what do you want from me?"

Nick smiled again. He offered a cigarette, which was refused, then lit his own. "Nothing in particular, Mr. Westcott. It's just that I'm trying to get all the information I can about Mr. Bennett. He's disappeared, as you must know, and he was rather heavily insured with us. You're a neighbor of his — did you know him well?"

Westcott laughed harshly. "Know him? Nobody knew that nut very well! He and that fat slob of a wife kept strictly to themselves. Which was all right with the rest of us around here — they didn't belong here anyway! I, we, all of us around here, we all knew something like this would happen someday. And sure enough…"

Nick regarded the man steadily. This might be only suburban spite and snobbishness, yet he could not afford to overlook an angle.

With intent to flatter he said: "I can't seem to get much out of the police. Either they don't know much or they just aren't talking. Now you, Mr. Westcott, you look like an intelligent and alert man. What do you think really happened over there?"

There was no mistaking the genuineness of Westcott's expression of amazement. "Happened? No question of that, mister. Just what the cops think. That crazy bastard killed his wife and ran away — probably with some other dame." Westcott grinned nastily. "Can't say I blame him for running away — that wife of his was a real mess. Only he didn't have to kill her."

Nick looked disappointed. He shrugged his big shoulders. "Sorry I bothered you, Mr. Westcott. I thought you might know something, have noticed something, that the police overlooked. But I guess you're right — it's just a routine case of wife murder. Goodbye."

"Wait a minute." Westcott tapped his pipe on his teeth. "I do know something the cops don't. Because I didn't tell them. I… I don't like to get mixed up in anything, see, so when they asked me questions I just answered those questions, see. I didn't shoot off my mouth any, didn't volunteer anything."

Nick waited patiently. "Yes, Mr. Westcott?"

"I don't see how it would have helped the cops any if I had told them," said Westcott defensively, "but this Bennett was a real nut. He used to dress up and parade around the neighborhood at night, see. In a sort of costume. I used to watch him. Follow him, just to see what he was up to."

Nick smiled again. "And what was he up to, Mr. Westcott?"

"Among other things he was a peeper. A Peeping Tom. He used to prowl the neighborhood and look in bedroom windows, trying to watch women dressing or undressing."

Nick stared at the man. His mobile lips quirked a bit as he said, "You saw him doing this, Mr. Westcott?"

"Yeah. A lot of times — well, anyway two or three times. He didn't come around my place, though, so I…"

Nick picked it up smoothly. "He didn't come around your place, Mr. Westcott, so you didn't bother to report him to the police? Is that it?"

Westcott's face was flushed. "Well, yes. Like I said, I don't like to get mixed up in anything. The guy wasn't really hurting anything and I, uh…" His voice trailed off.

Nick Carter kept a straight face. Obviously Bennett had interfered with Westcott's own peeping and that, while it must have been annoying, was definitely not a police matter!

Westcott must have sensed Nick's thought because he hurried on in an attempt to blur the moment over. "I got a pretty good look at him sometimes, when he didn't know I was watching. He was always dressed like he thought he was in a TV show or something — you know, the trench-coat and the smart aleck hat. He would always have the coat buttoned up under his chin and the hat pulled down over his eyes. And he always kept his hands in his pockets, too. Like maybe he had a gun, you know."

Westcott tapped out his pipe on a birch tree. "After what happened, him murdering his wife, I mean, he probably did have a gun, huh? I'm glad now that I never called him on the peeping stuff. He might have shot me!"

Nick turned away. He flipped a hand in farewell. "I don't think so, Mr. Westcott. The gun wasn't loaded. And now that you've got the field to yourself again — let me wish you happy peeping. And thanks for everything."

He did not turn at the faint sound behind him. It was only Mr. Westcott's pipe dropping from his open mouth.

In the car, on the way back into Washington, he told Hawk what Westcott had revealed. Hawk nodded without any real interest, "It only confirms what we already know. Bennett is a nut. So he liked to peep and play cops and robbers at night — that's not going to help us catch him."

Nick wasn't so sure. But he kept his peace and for a time they drove in silence. Hawk broke it. "I had a thought back there in the room — just before you went off into that trance. I'll tell you if you promise not to die laughing."

"Promise."

"Okay." Hawk crunched fiercely on a dry cigar. "As I was saying back there — if the Kremlin put one over on us, really succeeded in planting Bennett on us, then why in hell haven't they been using him? Contacting him? Milking him for all it was worth? It just doesn't make sense that the Ivans would plant a sleeper on us for thirty years! Five, yes. Maybe ten. That's been done. But thirty! That's a hell of a long sleeper."

Nick agreed. "Yet they seem to have done just that, sir."

Hawk shook his head. "No. I don't think so. And I've got a real screwy theory that just might explain it. Suppose they goofed in the Kremlin. Really goofed, a monumental flub. Suppose they planted Bennett on us way back in 1936 and then forgot about him!"

At least it was a fresh approach to their problem. Certainly it had not occurred to Nick. But it seemed to him a little wild. He wasn't buying it. Not yet. He reminded Hawk of one of the basic facts of life, one of the first things an agent is taught. Never underestimate the Russians.

"I'm not," said Hawk dourly. "But it is possible, boy! We make mistakes, as you know, and some of them are dillies. So do the Reds. We usually manage to cover our mistakes, hide them, and so do they. The more I think about it the more plausible it becomes. Remember that they must have told Bennett that he was going to be a sleeper. Told him to lie low, quiet like a mouse, and never try to contact them. Never! They would get in touch with him when the time came. Only it never came. They lost his file somehow. They forgot his existence. A lot can happen in thirty years, and Russians die the same as everybody else. Anyway 1936 was a bad year for them — that and the years just after. Their revolution was still pretty new and shaky, they'd had the purges, they had begun to worry about Hitler. A lot of things. And they weren't nearly as efficient then as they are now. I know! I was just a young agent then."

Killmaster shook his head. "It's still pretty wild, sir. I think you're reaching way out into left field to get an explanation. But there is one aspect, one set of circumstances, under which your theory might make some sense."

Hawk was watching him intently. "And that is?"

"If, after they recruited Bennett, they found out he was a nut. A psycho. Or that he had tendencies that way. We know they don't recruit mental cases — they would have dropped him like a hot potato. Probably they would have betrayed him themselves just to get off the hook. There was no risk, no danger to them. Bennett was a loner, a sleeper, not part of a network. He couldn't have known anything to hurt them."

"But they didn't betray him," Hawk said softly. "Never. And we didn't know about him. Yet they've never used him, at least to our knowledge. So if they didn't goof, if it wasn't a Kremlin foul-up, what the hell is the answer?"

"It just could be," said Nick, "that they're playing it straight. That Raymond Lee Bennett was supposed to sleep for thirty years. While that freak brain of his sucked up everything like a vacuum cleaner. Now they want him. Some commissar, some high brass in MGB, has decided the time has come for sleeping beauty to awake."

Nick chuckled. "Maybe he got a kiss in the mail. Anyway, if I'm right, the Russians are in a little trouble, too. I doubt they expected him to kill his wife! They certainly don't know, or didn't at the time, how crazy Bennett is. They expected him to vanish quietly, without any fanfare, and turn up in Moscow. After a few months, or years, of squeezing his brain dry they could give him some little job to keep him quiet and happy. Or maybe just arrange for him to disappear. Only it didn't work out that way — Bennett is a wife killer, the game is blown, and every agent in the world is looking for him. I'll bet the Russians are damned unhappy."

"No more than I am," said Hawk bitterly. "This thing has more angles than my maiden aunt. We've got plenty of theories, but no Bennett. And Bennett we must have! Dead or alive — and I don't have to tell you which I prefer."

Nick Carter closed his eyes against the hot glare of the sun on the Potomac. They were back in Washington now. No. Hawk didn't have to tell him.

He left Hawk on Dupont Circle and went to the Mayflower by taxi. A suite was always reserved for him there, a suite that could be reached by a service entrance and a private elevator. He wanted a couple of drinks, a long shower and a few hours' sleep.

The phone was ringing as he entered the suite. Nick picked it up. "Yes?"

"Me again," said Hawk. "Scramble."

Nick scrambled. Hawk said, "It was on my desk when I came in. A flash from Berlin. One of our people is on his way to Cologne right now. They think they've spotted Bennett."

There went the sleep. For now. Nick never slept well on planes. He said, "In Cologne?"

"Yes. He's probably avoiding Berlin purposely. Too dangerous, too much pressure. But never mind all that now — you were right about the woman, Nick. In a way. Berlin was tipped by a prostitute in Cologne who works for us sometimes. Bennett was with her last night. You'll have to contact her. That's all I know right now. Take off, son. A car will pick you up in fifteen minutes. The driver will have your instructions and travel orders and all the dope I've got. It isn't much, I know, but a hell of a lot more than we had ten minutes ago. An Army bomber is flying you over. Good luck, Nick. Let me know how it goes. And get Bennett!"

"Yes, sir." Nick hung up and stared at the ceiling for a moment. Get Bennett. He thought he would — barring death. But it wasn't going to be easy. Hawk thought it was a complex mess now — Nick had a hunch that it was going to get a hell of a lot worse before it was over.

Killmaster took one of the fastest showers of all time, letting the water stream icy cold over his rangy, hard-muscled body. He dried with a huge towel — small towels were a favorite hate of his — and wrapped it around his flat thirty-four-inch middle.

The bed was a double one and the big mattress was heavy, but he flipped it with an easy wrist motion. As usual he had a little difficulty locating the seam which in turn so cunningly concealed the zipper. Old Poindexter, of Special Effects and Editing, had overseen this job personally and the old man was an artisan of the old school.

Nick finally found the zipper and opened it, removed wads of stuffing and thrust his arm full length into the mattress. The arms cache was cunningly placed in the exact center of the mattress, well padded, so that nothing could be felt from the outside.

He took out the 9mm Luger, the stiletto, and the deadly little metal ball that was Pierre the gas bomb. One whiff of Pierre's lethal essence could kill a roomful of people. Now Nick attached the little bomb — about the size of a Ping-Pong ball — to his body. When he had finished the bomb hung free between his legs.

The 9mm Luger, stripped down, a skeleton of a pistol, had been encased in a lightly oiled rag. Knowing that it was in perfect condition, still Killmaster checked the pistol again, pulling a rag through the barrel, testing the action and the safety, thumbing out cartridges on the bed to test the feeder spring in the clip. Finally he was satisfied. Wilhelmina was ready for grim games and nasty fun.

Killmaster dressed rapidly. The stiletto, in the soft chamois sheath, was strapped to the inner side of his right forearm. A flick of his wrist activated a spring that shot the cold hilt down into his palm.

There was a beat-up old dartboard hanging on one wall of the bedroom. Nick walked to the far side of the room, turned rapidly and flung the stiletto. It quivered in the cork, just outside the bull's-eye. N3 shook his head slightly. He was a trifle out of practice. He replaced the stiletto in the sheath, donned a plastic shoulder clip, stowed away the Luger and finished dressing. The desk should be calling at any moment to announce the arrival of his car.

The phone rang. But it was Hawk again. No one but an intimate could have discerned the tension in the voice of the man who ran AXE practically singlehanded. Nick caught it immediately. More trouble?

"I'm glad I caught you," Hawk rasped. "You're scrambling?"

"Yes, sir."

"More on Bennett, son. It's even worse than we thought. Everyone is really digging now and the stuff is flooding in — Bennett was a steno-reporter at some meetings of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Quite recently, I take it. Just before he came to us."

"That does make it nice," said Nick grimly. "That freak brain of his knows the thinking, the bias and prejudice, the likes and dislikes, of every one of our top brass. Damn — that sort of information can be as valuable to the Ivans as any 'hard' stuff he might have picked up."

"I know," said Hawk. "How I know! The bastards might as well have had a bug in the White House. Anyway, I just got the flash and the FBI suggested I pass it on to — to whoever is doing the job for us. They don't know about you, of course. Actually they're just trying to nail home the tremendous urgency of finding Bennett — as though we didn't know it. They now presuppose him to be carrying, somewhere in his crazy skull, information about atomic weaponry, missiles and anti-missile missiles, plans for the defense of Europe, estimates of comparative military capabilities, military intelligence reports and analyses — I'm reading this from a flimsy they sent me — information pertaining to troop movements, retaliation plans of the United States Strategic Air Command and, hold your hat, boy, a tentative extrapolation of the war in Vietnam! Whether or not Bennett realizes he knows all these things — he does! And when the Russians realize he does — if they don't already — they will build the biggest suction pump in the world to dredge our man dry. They won't care how long it takes, either."

"I'd better get cracking, sir. The car must be downstairs by now."

"Right, son. Goodbye again. Good luck. And, Nick — there's a penciled notation on this flimsy. From J.E.H. in person. He suggests that the best solution of our problem is a few ounces of lead in the soft tissues of the Bennett brain. As soon as possible."

"I couldn't agree more," said Nick Carter.