Assassination Brigade

Six

AXE’s New York office was on the Lower West Side of the city in a warehouse in the dock area. The cab driver wasn’t too happy when he heard the address. I guess he thought I was going to mug him en route, because I heard him sigh with relief when we pulled up in front of die place. I over-tipped him and got out. As I.started across the sidewalk, he leaned out the window and asked, “You sure this is the place you want, buddy?”

I waved him away. His feelings were understandable. The whole waterfront area was dark and deserted. The building that housed AXE headquarters was blacked out except for one lighted room in the front of the building. What the cab driver couldn’t know was that all the other dark windows in the building were painted over to conceal the bustling activity that went on inside twenty-four hours a day and that men with powerful infrared telescopes observed the street outside constantly. Actually, the cabbie couldn’t have been safer anywhere in the city than right there, outside the most powerful counterintelligence agency in the world.

The night security man on duty in the lighted front office, which looked like an ordinary warehouse office, pressed a buzzer under his desk, and I passed through an iron door to a manned elevator. The sentries with their telescopes in the upstairs windows had already cleared me with both men while I was still approaching the building.

“Hawk left orders to take you to the basement as soon as you came in,” the elevator operator said. The car descended.

The basement — that meant Hawk was waiting for me in the agency’s morgue. Like most of the world’s supersecret intelligence organizations, AXE had to have its own morgue on the premises to handle those corpses that couldn’t be turned over to the police right away. Most of the bodies, however, were eventually placed in the hands of local law-enforcement officials after the way had been cleared so there would be no embarrassing questions asked.

I found Hawk standing beside the sheeted body of Z1. The AXE medical examiner, Dr. Christopher, was with him.

Hawk nodded to me and the medical examiner, whom we called Dr. Tom, said, “I ran a preliminary autopsy, Nick. It agrees with what you told us. His death was caused by a broken neck.”

“Did you find anything else?” I asked.

Dr. Tom shook his head. “Nothing so far. Why?”

Instead of answering him, I spoke to Hawk. “Did Agent Z1 report back to you today with my suggestion that we try to get an autopsy done on the brain of Ambassador Kolchak?”

“No, he didn’t,” Hawk said. “He Came back here to headquarters and told me that you had made contact with Helga Von Alder. I didn’t see him after that. There was no mention of an autopsy. Is that important?”

“It could be,” I said slowly. “It might supply us with a possible motive for his attack on me.”

Hawk frowned. “I don’t follow you.”

I knew it was safe to talk in front of Dr. Tom, who had top-level security clearance on all AXE activities. “Well, when he jumped me in Helga’s apartment, he appeared to be dazed — like someone who was not in control of himself — yet his physical actions were perfectly coordinated.”

“You mean,” Hawk interrupted, “you think he was one of the assassination brigade? Much as I dislike the thought that one of our own agents could be under the influence of this — this power or whatever it is, I agree.”

“But that wouldn’t necessarily explain why he would try to kill me,” I resumed, “unless I had said or done something that was threatening whatever it is we’re fighting. The only tiling I can think of was my suggestion for an autopsy. Since he didn’t pass the suggestion on to you but did try to kill me, it would seem that was the connection.”

“What exactly did you think an examination of the ambassador’s brain would show?” Dr. Tom asked.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But we have been speculating that the men involved in these incidents were brainwashed in some way. So the autopsy on the Russian was a stab at proving the brainwashing theory. Maybe we’ll find nothing, but then we’ve got nothing to lose by trying it.”

“Yes, I see,” Dr. Tom said. He looked down at the corpse lying on the AXE morgue slab. He glanced at Hawk. “How about it, Chief?”

Hawk hesitated for only a fraction of a second. “Go ahead,” he said, nodding.

Dr. Tom pulled the sheet up over the frozen features. “It’ll take me a couple of days to do the job,” he said thoughtfully, “I’ll send you a report as soon as I have the results.”

Hawk and I left the morgue in silence and rode the elevator up to the second floor of the building. That floor was the nerve center of the New York headquarters. A staff of more than fifty people worked there twenty-four hours a day at teletypes, radios, and closed circuit television sets that communicated with the offices of the world’s police forces. The corridor that led to Hawk’s office ran alongside the big room. There were one-way glass windows on the walls so that those in the corridor could see into the room but those in the room couldn’t see them. This arrangement prevented other AXE personnel from observing the secret agents who reported to Hawk’s office.

Once we were in Hawk’s office, the chief of AXE settled wearily into his desk chair, rummaged through his pockets until he found a chewed-up cigar, and stuck it, unlit, in his mouth.

“I must confess, Nick,” he said, “this case has me worried. What’s your opinion about die Von Alders?”

“It’s hard to say,” I replied, choosing my words carefully. “As far as I have been able to determine, they’re exactly what they appear to be on the surface. But it’s hard to discount the fact that every time there’s a new development in the case, they’re somehow connected.”

“Speaking of new developments,” Hawk cut in, “I haven’t had a chance to tell you about Monte Carlo. We just got the word tonight from Interpol.”

“Monte Carlo?” I asked.

“Yes. There’s a run on the casino there. A man named Tregor, a Belgian, is breaking die bank. Tregor’s brother-in-law had tried to stab the Chancellor of Germany a few weeks ago, then plunged the knife into his own throat instead. We have nothing on Tregor, but you’d better go and check him out anyway.

“The casino management has temporarily stopped the play,” said Hawk. “But they’ve agreed to resume it in twenty-four hours. I’d like you to be there when the casino reopens, but I don’t want you to be out of touch with the Von Alders. Can you manage both?”

“It’s no problem,” I told him. “Earlier this evening Helga pleaded with me to take a trip with her to Mexico. She said we could use her private jet.”

“And you think she’d settle for Monte Carlo?” Hawk laughed. “You must put a lot into your work.”

“It does have its rewards.” “I can well imagine,” he answered, waving me out of his office in dismissal