Hood of Death

Chapter X

The cruiser could really travel. Nick wondered what kind of big twins they had in her. Whoever was on the bridge could handle a wheel, even if he failed to warm up engines properly. The boat thundered away from the Patapsco River, holding steady-on to her course. If there had been an amateur at the helm who had let the bow rock from side to side, Nick wasn't sure he could have held on against some of the swells that slammed into him.

Somewhere off Pinehurst they passed a big freighter and when the cruiser crossed the ship's wake Nick realized how an ant would feel trapped in an automatic washing machine. He was dunked and raised on high, banged and buffeted. Water; crashed upward on him with such force that some was forced up his nose, even against his powerful lungs. He choked and gagged, and when he tried to control the water with his breathing, he bounced against the sheer and the wind was knocked out of him again.

He decided he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and there was no exit. The blows against his backside as it bucketed against the hard salt water felt as if they might emasculate him. What a decoration — castrated in line of duty! He tried to hoist himself higher but the bouncing, vibrating line threw him down every time he hauled himself up a few inches. They passed the big ship's wake and he could space his breathing again. He wished they'd arrive wherever they were going. He thought, // they go out to sea and there's any weather running, I've had it.

He tried to estimate their position. It seemed as if he had been hammered like a yo-yo into the surf for hours. They must be off the Magothy River by now. He twisted his head to try and see Love Point or Sandy Point or the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. He saw only surging water.

His arms ached. His chest would be black and blue. This was hell on the water. He realized that in another hour he would have to concentrate to stay conscious — and then the roar of the engines died to a comfortable rumble. He swung again with his trunk above the bow wave. Relaxing, he hung in the two bights of line like a drowned otter being hoisted above a trap.

Now what? He brushed his hair from his eyes and twisted his neck. Idling up the bay, riding lights and masthead lights and cabin lamps a paintable picture in the night, came a two-masted schooner. No plywood plaything that, he decided, that's a baby built for the money and the deep sea.

They were bearing to pass the schooner port-to-port red-to-red. He hitched himself around to the starboard rim of the sheer, out of sight. It wasn't easy. The rope, hitched to a port cleat, fought him. The cruiser began to make a slow, tight turn to port In a few moments Nick would be presented to the eyes of those on the larger craft like a roach riding a bakery cake on a rotating window stand.

He whipped out Hugo, reached up the line as high as ht could and waited, watching. The instant the stern of the schooner came in sight he slashed the line with the stiletto's razor edge.

He hit the water and got one solid kick against the moving boat as he swam down and out, sweeping great strokes with his powerful arms, scissoring his legs as he never had before. He called on his magnificent body with straining intensity. Down and out, away from the meat grinder propellers coming toward you — sucking at you — reaching for you.

He cursed his stupidity for wearing clothes even if they had protected him from some of the pounding waves. He fought the weight of his arms and Stuart's devices that were thunder of the engines and the roaring-liquid mumble-rumble of the propellers rammed against his eardrums as if to break them. The water suddenly seemed like glue — holding him, fighting him. He felt an up-pull and an in-pull as the boat's screws reached out for great gulping draughts of water and slavered to take him with the liquid, like an ant sucked down into the grinders of a garbage disposal unit He fought, stabbing at the water with short choppy strokes, using every skill — feathering his hands on the forward lunges, wasting no energy on tail strokes. His loins ached with the power and speed of his kicking.

The pressure changed. The rumble growled past him unseen in the dark depths. Instead of groping for him the underwater currents suddenly tossed him aside, repelling him end over end. The screws were by him!

He straightened, stroked and kicked upward. Even his trained, mighty lungs were exhausted from the strain. He surfaced gently. Breathed gratefully. The schooner was masked by the cruiser, and he was certain that everyone on both ships must be looking at each other, not at a blob of darkness on the surface that moved slowly toward the bow of the schooner, keeping out of range of the lights.

The larger vessel had reversed her engines to stop. He decided that was part of the rumble he had heard. Now the cruiser reversed, made gentle contact. He heard calls in Chinese. Lines were secured. People clambered from the smaller craft to the larger. Evidently they were going to lay to for awhile. Good! They could have left him helplessly behind, perfectly able to swim home but feeling completely stupid.

Nick swam in a wide loop until he was bow-on to the big schooner, then slipped underwater and swam toward her, listening for the rumble of her big engines. He would be in trouble if she suddenly started forward, but he counted on greetings, talk, perhaps even a period of laying-to by both craft for talks or… what? He had to discover that what.

The schooner had no canvas up. She had been running on her auxiliaries. His quick glances had noted only four or five men on her, which would be enough to handle her in a pinch, but she might have a small army aboard.

He peeked down her port side. The cruiser had been secured. Under the dim deck lights of the schooner a man who looked like a Lascar sailor lounged on the low metal-and-chain rail, gazing at the smaller vessel.

Nick swam silently around the starboard bow, searching for a stray anchor line. Nothing. He went back a few yards and eyed the bowsprit rigging and chains. They were high above him. He could no more reach them then a cockroach swimming in a bathtub could reach the showerhead. He swam along the starboard side, passed her widest beam point and found nothing but smooth, well-cared-for hull. He went farther aft — and got his biggest break of the evening, he decided. A yard above his head, neatly secured against the schooner by bridle lines, was hooked an aluminum ladder. The type used for many purposes — docking, entering small boats, swimming, fishing. Evidently the ship had been at a dock or anchorage down the bay and they had not felt it necessary to secure her for sea. That indicated that a rendezvous between the cruiser and the schooner might be a frequent occurrence.

He dove, came up like an aqua-show porpoise leaping for a fish, caught the ladder and climbed up, lying against the ships side to let at least some of the water drain from his sodden clothes.

Everyone seemed to have gone below except the sailor on the other side. Nick climbed aboard. He slurped like a wet sail and shed water from both feet. Regretfully he took off his coat and pants, transferred his wallet and a few items to the pockets in his special shorts, and dropped the garments into the sea, after buttoning them into a dark ball.

Standing like a modern Tarzan, in shirt and shorts and socks, festooned with a shoulder holster and a slim knife strapped to his forearm, he felt more exposed — but somehow free. He crept aft along the deck, toward the cockpit Near a port, secured open but with a screen and drape blocking his view, he heard voices. English, Chinese and German! He could catch only a few words of the multilingual conversation- He slit the screen and tipped aside a drape very cautiously with Hugo's needlepoint tip.

In the big main cabin or saloon, around a table covered with glasses and bottles and cups, sat Akito, Hans Geist, a huddled form with gray hair and a bandaged face and the thin Chinese. Nick studied the Chinese. It was his first really good look at him. There had been a glimpse in Maryland, when Geist had called him Chick, and in Pennsylvania. The man had alert eyes, sat confidently like a man who thought he could handle what came up.

Nick listened to odd chatter until Geist said, "… the girls are cowardly babies. There cannot be a connection between the Englishman Williams and the stupid notes. I say we continue with our plan."

"I saw Williams," Akito said reflectively. "He reminded me of someone else. But who?"

The man with the bandaged face spoke with a guttural accent. "What do you say, Soong? You are the buyer. With most to gain or lose because you need the oil."

The thin Chinese smiled briefly. "Do not believe we are desperate for oil. The world markets are glutted with it In three months we will pay less than the dollar-seventy a barrel in the Persian Gulf. Which by the way gives the imperialists a profit of a dollar-fifty. Just one of them pumps three million barrels a day. You can forecast the surplus."

"We know the world picture," the bandaged man said gently. "The question is do you still want the oil shipments now."

"Yes."

"Then the cooperation of only one man is needed. We will get it."

"I hope so," Chick Soong replied. "Your plan for obtaining cooperation by the use of fear, force and fornication hasn't worked too well so far."

"I have been around much longer than you, my friend. I have seen what makes men move… or not move."

"I admit your experience is immense." Nick got the impression that Soong had large reservations; like a good back he'd do his part in the play, but he had connections in the office so look out. "When will you put the pressure on?"

"Tomorrow," said Geist.

"Very well. We should know quickly whether it is effective or not. Shall we meet day after tomorrow at Shenandoah?"

"A good idea. More tea?" Geist poured, looking like a weightlifter trapped at a girl's party. He was drinking whiskey himself.

Nick thought. You can learn more at windows today than with all the bugs and taps in the world. Nobody discloses anything on a phone any more.

The talk became boring. He let the drape close and crept along past two portholes which opened onto the same room. He came to another which was the master stateroom, open and covered with a screen and chintz curtain. Girls* voices came through it. He slit the screen and cut a tiny opening in the curtain. My, he mused, how naughty.

Seated fully clothed and looking quite prim were Ruth Moto, Suzi Quong and Anne We Ling. On the bed, stark naked, were Pong-Pong Lily, Sonya Ranyez and the man called Sammy.

Nick noted that Sammy looked fit, no belly. The girls were luscious. He inspected the deck both ways for a moment so that he could devote a few seconds to scientific observation. Wow, that Sonya! You could just click a camera from any position and you'd have a Playboy foldout.

What she was doing you couldn't put in Playboy. You couldn't use it anywhere except in steel-core pornography. Sonya was devoting her attention to Sammy, who lay with his knees drawn up and a delighted expression on his face while Pong-Pong supervised. Every time Pong-Pong said something to Sonya in a low tone that Nick could not catch, it had a reaction seconds later on Sammy. He would smile, jump, twitch, moan or gurgle with pleasure.

School is in session, Nick decided. His mouth felt a little dry. He swallowed. Wooh! Who thought that one up? He told himself he shouldn't be so surprised. A true expert always had to learn somewhere. And Pong-Pong was a great teacher — she was making an expert out of Sonya.

"Oooh!" Sammy arched his back and emitted a gasp of pure enjoyment.

Pong-Pong smiled at him like a tutor proud of her pupil. Sonya didn't look up and couldn't speak. She was an apt student.

A chatter of Chinese on deck toward the stern alerted Nick. He withdrew his eye from the curtain with regret. You can always learn. Two sailors were on his side of the ship, probing the water with a long boathook. Nick retreated into the spacious cockpit. Damn! They hoisted up a limp black bundle. His discarded clothes! The weight of the water hadn't sunk them after all. One sailor took the bundle and disappeared down a hatch.

He thought fast. They may search. The sailor on deck was probing at the water with the hook, hoping for another find. Nick crossed over and went up the ratlines of the mainmast. The schooner was gaff-rigged. Once above the main truck he had considerable concealment. He curled himself around the topmast like a lizard around a tree trunk and watched.

He got action. Hans Geist and Chick Soong came and went on deck accompanied by five sailors. They went in and out of hatches. They explored the cockpit and checked the lazarette lock and gathered at the bow and beat their way to the stern like bush hunters beating for game. They got lights and searched the water all around the schooner, then around the cruiser, and then they searched the smaller craft. Once or twice one of them glanced up, but like many searchers, they failed to believe their quarry might be up.

Their comments arose to him loud and clear in the still night. "Those clothes were just junk… Command One says no… what about those special pockets?… He swam away or had a boat… anyway he ain't here now."

A short while later Ruth, Suzi, Sonya, Anne, Akito, Sammy and Chick Soong got into the cruiser and roared away. Soon the schooner's engines revved up and she made a turn and started down the bay. One man was on watch at the wheel and another on the bow. Nick studied the tillerman. When his head was over the binnacle Nick came down the ratline like a monkey in a hurry. When the man looked up Nick said, "Hi," conversationally and chopped him down before surprise registered.

He was tempted to drop him overboard to save time and cut the odds, but even a Killmaster rating wouldn't justify that. With Hugo he cut two pieces of line, secured his prisoner and gagged him with his own shirt.

The bowman may have seen or sensed something wrong. Nick met him in the waist of the ship and in three minutes he was trussed up like his mate. Nick thought of Pong-Pong. Everything goes so well when you're completely trained.

Things didn't go well in the engine room. He went down the iron ladder, held Wilhelmina on an astonished Chinese standing at the control panel, and then another one came out of the tiny stores room behind him and grabbed him around the neck.

Nick flipped him like a rodeo bronc bouncing a lightweight rider, but the man had a steely grip and held onto his gun arm. Nick got a chop down that hit skull instead of neck and the other engineman came across the deckplates gripping a big iron tool.

Wilhelmina roared. The slug bounced murderously around the steel plates. The man swung the tool and Nick's lightning reflexes put under the blow the man who clung to him. It hit his shoulder and he screamed and let go.

Nick parried the next blow and slammed Wilhelmina against the weapon bearer's ear. An instant later he had the other one on the floor where he lay moaning.

"Hey!" A shout came down the ladder in the tones of Hans Geist.

Nick swung Wilhelmina up and blasted a warning at the dark opening. He jumped to the back of the compartment, out of range, and studied the situation. Seven or eight men up there. He stepped back to the panel and cut the engines off. The silence was a momentary surprise.

He looked at the ladder. I can't go up and they can't come down, but they can get me out with gas or even burning rags. They'll think of something. He hurried through the| stores room and found a watertight door and threw off the dogs. It let forward. The schooner had been built for a small crew and with inside passages for heavy weather. If he moved fast, before they organized…

He crept forward, saw the room where he had seen the girls and Sammy. It was empty. Just as he entered the main saloon Geist disappeared up the main hatch, pushing before him the form of the bandaged man. Judas? Bormann?

Nick started to follow, then leaped back as a pistol snout appeared and spat slugs down the beautiful hardwood stairway. They tore up a lot of fine woodwork and varnish. Nick ran back to the watertight door. No one followed. He went into the engine room and called, "Hello, up there."

A Tommy gun chattered and the engine room became a shooting gallery as steel-jacketed slugs ricocheted around in it like shot shaken in a metal vase. Lying on the forward side of the barrier, protected by its high Up at deck level, he heard several bullets chung into the near wall. One went over him with the familiar deadly whir-r-r-r-r.

Someone shouted. The pistol forward and the spray gun at the engine room hatch stopped firing. Silence. Water slap-slapped against the hull. Feet pounded on decks. The vessel creaked and echoed with the dozens of sounds every ship generates when rolling in a light sea. He heard more shouts, the thud of wood and tackle. He surmised they were putting a boat overside, either the powered launch that was slung over the stern or the dory atop the deckhouse. He found a hacksaw, severed engine wires.

He explored his below-decks prison. The schooner appeared to have been built in a Dutch or Baltic yard. She was well put together. Metal was in metric measurements. The engines were German diesels. At sea, he thought, she combines the ruggedness of a Gloucester fisherman with extra speed and comfort. Some of these vessels were designed with a loading hatch near the stores and engine rooms. He explored midships, behind the watertight bulkhead. He found two small cabins which would serve two of the sailors and just aft of them he discovered the loading hatch in the side, beautifully fitted and secured with six big metal dogs.

He went back and bolted the engine-room hatch. So much for that. He crept forward along the companionway into the main saloon. A pistol tilted in his general direction was fired twice. Swiftly he returned to the side-hatch, unfastened the dogs and slowly swung out the metal door.

If they were putting the little dory on this side, or if one of the men topside was an engineer with a head on his shoulders and they had put a watch on the side-hatch already, it would mean that he was still trapped. He looked out. There was nothing visible but dark purple water and the glow of lights from above. All the activity sounded from the launch at the stern. He could see the tip of its bow. They had lowered it.

Nick reached up, grabbed the gunwale, then the rail, and slid onto the deck like a water moccasin crawling onto a log. He snaked his way aft Hans Geist helped Pong-Pong Lily over the side and down a ladder. He said to someone Nick could not see, "Go out fifty feet and circle."

Nick felt grudging admiration for the big German, He was putting his girl friend in a safe place in case Nick opened the seacocks or the schooner was blown up. He wondered who they thought he was. He crawled up on the deckhouse and stretched out between the dory and two U-rafts.

Geist came back along the deck, passing ten feet from Nick. He said something to whoever was watching the engine-room hatch and then disappeared in the direction of the main hatch. The guy had guts. He was going down into the ship to flush out the interloper. Surprise!

Nick went noiselessly aft on bare feet. The two Chinese sailors he had tied up were now untied and watching the hatch like cats at a mousehole. Rather than risk more blows on Wulhelmina's barrel, Nick took a belaying pin out of its hole. The two went down like lead soldiers brushed by a child's hand.

Nick raced forward, came up behind a man searching the water and guarding the foredeck. Nick paused as the man lay down on the deck under the belaying pin's tap without making a sound. This luck wouldn't last. Nick cautioned himself — went aft carefully, inspecting every cross-passage and deckhouse corner. The deck was empty. The remaining three men were working their way through the interior of the ship with Geist.

Nick realized he hadn't heard the launch's engine. He peeked over the taffrail. The launch had drifted thirty feet from the larger ship. A short sailor was cursing and fussing with the engine, watched by Pong-Pong. Nick crouched with the big pin in one hand and Wilhelmina in the other. Who had that Tommy gun now?

"Hey!" A voice behind him shouted. Feet thundered in the companion way.

Blam! A pistol roared and he was sure he heard the whir-r-r of the bullet as he went headfirst into the water. He dropped the pin and returned Wilhelmina to its holster and swam deep and out, toward the launch. He heard and felt the blasts and liquid kerchungs as slugs peppered the sea above him. He felt strangely safe and protected as he swam deep and then eased upward, searching for the bottom of the small boat.

He missed it, estimated that he was fifty feet out and surfaced as lightly as a frog peeping out of a pond. Outlined against the schooner's lights three men stood on the stern searching the water. He identified Geist by his giant size. The sailor in the launch was standing up, looking toward the larger craft. Then he swiveled, peering into the night, and his gaze stopped on Nick. He reached toward his waist. Nick realized he couldn't reach the boat before the man would be able to drill him four times. Wilhelmina came up, leveled — and the sailor went backward at the sound of its blast. The Tommy gun chattered wildly. Nick ducked under and put the launch between himself and the men on the schooner.

He swam to the launch — and looked sudden death right in the face. Pong Pong thrust a small automatic almost into his teeth as he grabbed the gunwale to pull himself up. She was muttering and pulling wildly on the gun with both hands. He grabbed for the weapon, missed and fell back. He was looking right into her lovely, angry face.

I've had it, he thought, she'll find the safety in an instant or she must know enough to cock it if the chamber is empty.

The Tommy gun rattled. Pong-Pong froze and then toppled forward onto Nick, striking him a glancing blow as she fell into the water. Hans Geist roared, "Stop that!" Followed by a stream of German oaths.

The night was suddenly very still.

Nick slid down in the water, keeping the launch between himself and the schooner. Hans called, a worried, almost plaintive appeal, "Pong-Pong?"

Silence. "Pong-Pong!"

Nick swam to the bow of the launch, reached up and got hold of a line. He secured the line around his waist and slowly began to tow the launch, stroking with all his great power against its dead weight. It swung slowly stern on to the schooner and followed him like a waterlogged snail.

"He's towing the launch," Hans yelled. "There…"

Nick surface dived as the spray gun chattered, came back up carefully, concealed by the launch. The gun rattled again, chewing at the stern of the small boat, flecking the water on both sides of Nick.

He towed the launch away into the night. Climbed in and started his beeper beacon — in hope — and after five minutes' swift work got the engine started.

The launch was slow, built for heavy work and rough seas, not speed. Nick plugged the five holes he could reach and bailed occasionally when water rose in her. A clear and brilliant dawn arose as he rounded the headland into the Patapsco River. Hawk, piloting a Bell helicopter, reached him as he headed in to a marina at Riviera Beach. They exchanged waves. Forty minutes later he had given the launch into the care of a surprised attendant and joined Hawk who had landed in the deserted parking lot. Hawk said, "It's a marvelous morning for a boat ride."

"All right, I'll ask," Nick said. "How did you find me?"

"Did you use Stuart's latest beeper? The signal was excellent."

"Yes. The thing is effective. Especially across water I suppose. But you don't go flying around every morning."

Hawk took out two of his strong cigars, gave one to Nick. "Once in awhile you meet a very smart citizen. You met one. Named Boyd. Ex-Navy Warrant Officer. He called Navy. Navy called F.B.I. They called me. I phoned Boyd and he described Jerry Deming, the oil man who wanted dock space. I thought I ought to buzz around in case you wanted to see me."

"And Boyd mentioned the mysterious cruiser that sails from the Chu Dai Marina, eh?"

"Well, yes," Hawk admitted cheerfully. "I couldn't see you missing a chance to sail in her."

"It was some voyage. They'll be cleaning up the wreckage for a long time. We went out…"

He described the events in exact detail Hawk refueled at Mountain Road Airport and they soared through the bright morning toward AXE's hangars above Annapolis. When Nick finished talking Hawk asked, "Any ideas, Nicholas?"

"Ill try one. The Chicoms want more oil. Top quality and now. They can buy all they want usually, but that's not like having Saudico or one of the others ready to load them as fast as they send tankers. Maybe that thin Chinese is a key. Say he set up a Washington organization using men like Judas and Geist who are experts at ruthless pressure. They've got the girls for information agents and to reward men who go for it. Once the news of the hood of death gets around, a man hasn't much choice. Fun and games or a quick death, and they aren't fooling."

"You are on target, Nick. Adam Read of Saudico has been told to load Chinese tankers at the Gulf or else."

"We have enough weight there to stop that."

"Yes, although some of the Arabs are acting rebellious. However we call the turns there. But that doesn't help Adam Read when he is told to sell or die."

"He's impressed?"

"He's impressed. They explained carefully. He knows about Tyson and although he's no coward you can't blame him for getting the wind up about an outfit that kills almost as an example."

"Have we got enough to close in?"

"Where is Judas? And Chick Soong and Geist? They will tell him that even if the men we know vanish others will get him."

"Orders?" Nick asked softly.

Hawk talked precisely for about five minutes.

An AXE chauffeur dropped Jerry Deming, clothed in borrowed mechanic's overalls, near his apartment at eleven. He wrote notes to three girls — and then there were four. And another — and then there were three. He dispatched the first set by special delivery and mailed the second group regular mail. Bill Rohde and Barney Manoon were to pick up any two of the girls except Ruth, during the day and evening, depending on opportunity.

Nick turned in and slept for eight hours. The telephone awakened him at dusk. He put on the scrambler. Hawk said, "We have Suzi and Anne. I hope they had a chance to worry each other."

"Sonya last?"

"We haven't had a chance at her but she's watched. Well get her tomorrow. But no sign of Geist or Soong or Judas. The schooner is back at a bay dock. Ostensibly belongs to a Taiwanese. British citizen. Leaving for Europe next week."

"Continue as ordered?"

"Yes. Good luck."

Nick wrote one more note — and then there was one. He mailed it to Ruth Moto.

Just before noon the next day he called her, reaching her after being transferred to Akito's office. She sounded tense as she refused his cheery invitation to lunch. "I'm — terribly busy, Jerry. Please call me again."

"It's not all pleasure," he said, "although you're the girl in Washington I'd most like to have lunch with. I've decided to chuck my job. There must be a way to make money faster and easier. Your Dad still interested?"

There was a pause. She said, "Please wait" When she came back on the phone she still sounded worried, almost scared. "He wants to see you. In a day or two."

"Well — I've got a couple of other angles, Ruth. Don't forget, I know where to get oil. And how to buy it Without limit I had the feeling he might be interested."

A long pause. At last she came back. "In that case — can you meet us for cocktails about five?"

"I'm looking for a job, honey. Ill meet you any time, anywhere."

"At Remarco's. Know it?"

"Sure. I'll be there."

When Nick, debonair in Italian-tailored gray sharkskin and Guards' tie, met Ruth at Remarco's she was alone. Vinci, the rugged partner who acts as greeter, took him to her in one of the many small alcoves of the discreet, popular rendezvous. She looked worried.

Nick gave her a big smile, slid in beside her and added a hug. She was rigid. "Hello, Ruthie. I've missed you. Ready for more adventures tonight?"

He felt her shudder. "Hi… Jerry. It's good to see you." She took a sip of water. "No… I'm… tired."

"Oh-h…" He raised a finger. "I know the medicine." He spoke to the waiter. 'Two martinis. Regular. The way Mr. Martini invented them."

Ruth fumbled out a cigarette. Nick slid one from the pack, held lights. "Daddy couldn't make it. We… we've had some important business come up."

"Problems?"

"Yes. Unexpected."

He tilted his eyes at her. She was a gorgeous dish! A king-size sweet imported from Norway and materials handcrafted on the way in Japan. He chuckled. She looked at him. "What?"

"I was just thinking how beautiful you are." He spoke slowly and softly. "Lately I've been watching girls — to see if there is just one with your wonderful body and exotic coloring. Nope. Not a one. You know you could be anything you wanted to, I believe. Model. Movie or TV actress. You actually look like what the world's future woman may look like. The best of East and West."

She colored a little. He thought, Nothing like a string of warm compliments to get a woman's mind off troubles.

"Thank you. You're quite a man yourself, Jerry. Daddy is really interested. He wants you to come and see him tomorrow."

"Oh." Nick donned a look of severe disappointment.

"Don't look so sad. He's really got an idea for you, I think."

I'll bet he has, Nick meditated. I wonder if he's really her father. And has he guessed something about Jerry Deming?

The martinis arrived. Nick continued a gentle conversation of sincere flattery and great possibilities for Ruth. He ordered two more drinks. Then two more. She protested — but she drank. Her stiffness retreated. She chuckled at his jokes. Time flowed by and they picked at a pair of Remarco's magnificent club steaks. They had brandy and coffee. They danced. Easing the lovely body around the floor Nick thought, / don't know just how she feels now but my spirits are up. He pulled her against him. She's relaxed. Eyes followed them. They made a striking couple.

Nick peeked at his watch. 9:52. Now, he thought, there are several ways to work this. If I do it the way I'll enjoy it most Hawk will figure it out and make one of his sardonic comments. Ruth's long, warm flank was pressed against his, under the table her slim fingers traced exciting patterns on his palm. My way, he decided. Hawk enjoys needling me anyway.

They entered "Jerry Deming's"' apartment at 10:46. Drank scotch and looked at the river lights while Billy Faire's music provided background. He told her how easily he could fall in love with a girl so lovely, so exotic, so intriguing. Playfulness progressed to passion, and he noted it was just midnight when he hung up her gown and his suit "to keep them neat."

Her ability at love-making electrified him. Call it relief from tension, credit it to the martinis, remember that she had been carefully trained to captivate men — it was still the greatest. He told her so at 2:00 a.m.

Her lips were wet against his ear, her breath a rich, hot compound of sweet passion, alcohol and a meaty, aphrodisiacal woman smell. She replied, "Thank you, darling. You make me very happy. And — you haven't enjoyed it all yet. I know a lot more" — she chuckled — "delightfully strange things."

"That's what makes me sad," he answered. "I've just really found you and I won't see you again for weeks. Perhaps months."

"What?" She raised her face, the skin glowing with a moist, hot, ruddy sheen in the light of one dim lamp "Where are you going? You're seeing Daddy tomorrow."

"No. I didn't want to tell you. I'm leaving for New York at ten. Catching a plane for London and then probably on to Riyadh."

"Oil business?"

"Yes. It's what I wanted to talk to Akito about but I guess that's out, now. When they squeezed me that time Saudico and the Japanese concession — you're familiar with that deal — didn't get it all. Saudi Arabia is three times the size of Texas, with maybe 170 billion barrels in reserves. Swims on oil. The big wheels have a lock on Faisal but there are five thousand princes. I've got my connections. I know where to tap out a few million barrels a month. Profit on it say — three million dollars. A third to me. I can't miss this deal…"

The sparkling black eyes were wide against his own. "You didn't tell me all this."

"You didn't ask."

"Maybe… maybe Daddy could make you a better deal than the one you're going into. He wants oil."

"He can buy all he wants from the Japanese concession. Unless — is he selling to Reds?"

She nodded slowly. "Do you mind that?"

He laughed. "Why? Everybody does."

"Can I call Daddy?"

"Go ahead. I'd much rather keep it in the family, darling." He kissed her. It took three minutes. Damn the hood of death and his job — it would be so much more fun just to — he gently disengaged. "Make the call. We haven't much time."

He dressed, his keen ears catching her side of the conversation. She told Daddy all about Jerry Deming's marvelous connections and those millions of barrels. Nick put two bottles of fine scotch into a leather bag.

An hour later she directed him down a side road near Rockville. Lights glowed in a medium-sized industrial-commercial building. The sign over the entrance said MARVIN IMPORT-EXPORT. Going down a hall Nick saw another small sign that was very unobtrusive, Walter W. Wing, Vice-President, Confederation Oil Company. He carried the leather bag.

Akito was waiting for them in a private office. He looked like an over-worked businessman, now, some of the mask was loosened. Nick thought he knew why. After the greetings and recap of Ruth's explanation, Akito said, "I know there is not much time, but perhaps I can make your trip to the Mideast unnecessary. We have the tankers. We'll pay you a dollar seventy-four a barrel for everything you can load for at least a year."

"Cash?"

"Of course. Any currency. Anywhere. Any split or arrangements you wish. You can see what I'm offering, Mr. Deming. You are in complete command of your profits. And thus your destiny."

Nick picked up the bag containing the scotch, put the two bottles on the desk. Akito smiled broadly. "We seal the deal with a drink, eh?"

Nick sat back, unbuttoned his coat. "Unless you still want to have another try at Adam Read."

The hard, dry planes of Akito's face froze. He looked like a below-zero Buddha.

Ruth gasped, stared in horror at Nick, turned to Akito. "I swear I didn't know…"

Akito brushed her silent with a chop of his hand. "So it was you. In Pennsylvania. On the boat. The notes to the girls."

"It was me. Don't move that hand again on your feet. Stay completely still. I can execute you in an instant. And your daughter might get hurt. By the way — is she your daughter?"

"No. The girls are… members."

"Recruited for a long-range plan. I can vouch for their training."

"Don't pity them. Where they came from they might never have had a full meal. We have given them…"

Wilhelmina appeared with a snap of Nick's wrist Akito stopped speaking. The frozen expression did not change. Nick said, "The way you are talking I assume you pressed a button under your foot. I hope it is for Soong and Geist and the others. I want them too."

"You want them. You said execute. Who are you?"

"You've guessed. N3 of AXE. Rated one of the three Killmasters."

"Barbaric."

"Like a sword chop on a helpless prisoner's neck?"

Akito's features dulled for the first time. The door opened. Chick Soong was a step into the room, looking at Akito, before he saw the Luger. He fell forward with the speedy grace of a Judo expert as Akito's hands flashed out of sight below the desk.

Nick placed the first bullet where the Luger was aimed — just below the triangle of white handkerchief in Akito's breast pocket. His second shot caught Soong in mid-air, four feet from the muzzle. The Chinese had a blue revolver coming up in one hand when Wilhelmina's shot took him right in the heart. As he fell, his head hit Nick's leg. He rolled on his back. Nick picked up the revolver and pushed Akito away from the desk.

The older man's body fell sideways from the chair. No more threat there, Nick noted, but you stayed alive by not taking anything for granted. Ruth was screaming in a full-throated glass-crash of sound that in the small room ripped at the eardrums like a cold knife. She ran out the door, still screaming.

He grabbed the two bottles of scotch-and-explosive from the desk and followed her. She ran down the hall toward the back of the building and into a warehouse section with Nick twelve feet behind her.

"Stop," he roared. She bolted down a corridor between stacked cartons. He holstered Wilhelmina and reached to grab her when she burst into an open space. A man naked to the waist was jumping down from the rear of a trailer truck. The man yelled, "What…?" as the three collided.

It was Hans Geist, and his mind and body reacted swiftly. He pushed Ruth aside, slammed a fist into Nick's chest. The man from AXE could not avoid the smashing greeting — his momentum carried him right into it. The scotch bottles burst on the concrete in a glass and liquid shower.

"No smoking," Nick said as he swung underhand at Geist's gun and then went to the floor as the big man opened his arms and closed them around him. Nick knew what it's like to surprise a grizzly bear. He was crushed, pounded and bounced on the cement. He couldn't reach Wilhelmina or Hugo. Geist had been around. Nick twisted to fend off a knee pounding at his testicles. Banged his skull into the man's face as he felt teeth biting at his neck. This guy played for keeps.

They rolled, grinding glass and whiskey into a greasier brown substance that coated the floor. Nick pistoned his elbows, expanded his chest and shoulders, and at last got his hands clasped together and shot them up — thrusting, prying, driving with every sinew and muscle and delivering all the power of his tremendous strength.

Geist was a powerful man, but when torso and shoulder muscles ram against arm strength, there is no contest. His arms flew out as Nick's locked hands surged up. Before he could close them again Nick's lightning reflexes decided the issue. He chopped the side of one iron-hard fist on Geist's Adam's apple — a clean blow that hardly touched the man's chin. Geist collapsed.

Swiftly Nick searched the rest of the small warehouse, found it empty, and cautiously approached the office section. Ruth had vanished — he hoped she wouldn't get a gun from Akito's desk and have a try. His keen hearing detected movement beyond the corridor door. Sammy came into the large room, preceded by an automatic of moderate size and with a cigarette clipped in the corner of his mouth. Nick wondered if he was a nicotine slave or watched old gangster movies on TV. Sammy went down the carton corridor, bent over the moaning Geist amid the shattered glass and stench of whiskey.

Staying as far back in the passageway as he could Nick called gently, "Sammy. Drop it or you're dead."

Sammy didn't. Sammy fired the automatic wildly and dropped his cigarette into the brown compound on the floor and Sammy went dead. Nick went twenty feet back along the cartons, blown by the force of the explosion, holding his mouth open to protect his eardrums. The warehouse was a mass of brownish smoke.

Nick staggered for a moment as he went through the office corridor. Wooh! That Stuart! His head was ringing. He was not too stunned to carefully check each room on his way to Akito's office. He entered it cautiously, Wilhelmina focusing on Ruth who sat at the desk, both her hands in sight and empty. She was crying.

Even with shock and horror smearing her boldly drawn features, with tears streaming down her cheeks, shaking and gasping as if she might retch any instant — Nick thought, She's still the most beautiful woman I've ever seen.

He said, "Relax, Ruth. He wasn't your father anyway. And it isn't the end of the whole world."

She choked. Her head nodded violently. She was struggling for air. "Don't care. We… You…"

Her head fell forward onto the hard wood and then tilted on its side. The beautiful body had become a rag doll made of soft cloth.

Nick leaned forward, sniffed and swore. Cyanide, most likely. He holstered Wilhelmina and put a hand on the sleek, smooth hair. And then there were none.

We are such fools. All of us.

He lifted the telephone and dialed Hawk.