Hood of Death

Chapter V

Nick stood very, very still. The sun, now only a short way above the mountains to the west, was hot on his face. In the forest a jay screamed, loud in the silence. The man with the shotgun had everything going for him — surprise, concealment, and his quarry against the sun.

Nick had halted with the brown cane swung forward. He held it there, six inches above the ground, without lowering it. The voice said, "You can turn around."

The man came out from behind a black walnut tree flanked by scrub brush. It looked like an observation post that had been arranged to be unnoticed. The shotgun looked like an expensive Browning, probably the Sweet 16 with no compensator. The man was of medium size, about fifty, dressed in a gray cotton shirt and pants but wearing a soft hat in a tweed pattern that would hardly be sold locally. He looked intelligent His quick gray eyes roved over Nick without haste.

Nick returned the look. The man stood easy, cradling the shotgun with his hand near the trigger, the muzzle pointed low and to the right. A novice might have decided that here was a man you could take with speed and surprise. Nick decided quite differently.

"I've had a little trouble up here," the man said. "Mind telling me where you're heading?"

"Over the old road and trail," Nick replied in his perfect old-boy accent "My name is Alastair Williams. I'm with Vickers. I'm on holiday and I'm following one of your excellent government survey maps. I'll be glad to show you ray identification and the map, if you desire."

"If you please."

Wilhelmina felt comfortable against his left rib cage. She could spit in a scant fraction of a second. Nick's judgment said that they both would finish neck and neck and dead. He carefully took the map from the side pocket of his blue jacket and his wallet from the inner breast pocket. He removed two cards from the wallet — a "Vicker's Security Division" pass complete with his picture, and a Universal Air Travel Card.

"Would you mind holding them straight out in your right hand?"

Nick didn't mind. He congratulated himself on his judgment as the man bent forward and took them with his own left hand, holding the gun well back and away. He took two steps back and glanced at the cards, noted the area listed in the corner of the map. Then he walked forward and handed them back. "Please excuse this reception. I have some truly dangerous neighbors. It's not quite like England."

"Oh, I'm sure," Nick answered as he put away the papers. "I'm familiar with your mountain people and their clannishness and dislike of government revenooers — do I pronounce that right?"

"Yes. You'd better come in for a cup of tea. Stay the night if you like. I'm John Villon. I live here." He gestured at the storybook farmhouse.

"Charming place," Nick said. "I'd love to join you in a cup and have a closer look at that lovely farm. But I want to get over the mountain and back. Can I call on you about four o'clock tomorrow?"

"Certainly. But you're starting out a bit late."

"I know. I left my car in the turnout because the road became so narrow. Which puts me a half-hour off schedule." He was careful to say shedule. "I often hike at night. I carry a small lamp. There'll be a moon tonight and actually I see quite splendidly at night. Tomorrow I'll retrace the trail by day. It can't be a bad path. It's been a road for almost two centuries."

"The going is easy enough, except for some stony washouts and a cleft where there was once a wooden bridge. You'll have to clamber down and up and ford a stream. Why are you so set on walking this trail?"

"A distant cousin of mine came over it by stage in the last century. Wrote a book about it In fact he went all the way to your West Coast I'm going to retrace his route. It will take me several years of holidays, but then I'm going to write a book about the changes. This will make a fascinating anecdote. Actually this area is more primitive than when he came through."

"Yes, it is. Well — best of luck. Stop by tomorrow afternoon."

"Thank you, I will. I'll be looking forward to that tea."

John Villon stood on the grassy center of the road and watched Alastair Williams stride away. A large, plump, limping figure in city clothes, walking purposefully and apparendy with indomitable serenity. The instant the hiker was out of sight, Villon went into the house, walking purposefully and swiftly himself.

Although Nick stepped briskly, his thoughts debated caution. John Villon? A romantic name, and a strange man in a mysterious location. He couldn't spend twenty-four hours a day in those bushes. How had he known of Nick's approach?

If a photoelectric cell or TV scanner monitored the road, that meant big-time, and big-time meant a connection with the Lord estate. Which meant…?

It meant a reception committee, for Villon must have communication with the others over the mountain notch traversed by the side trail. It was logical. If the operation was as big as Hawk suspected, or it proved to be the Baumann gang, they wouldn't leave a back door unwatched. He had hoped to spot the watchers first, which was why he had left the car.

He looked behind him, saw nothing, and discarded the limp and swung on at a near-trot that covered ground rapidly. I'm the mouse. They don't even need cheese because I'm committed. If it's a trap it will be a good one. The people who set it buy the best.

He glanced at the map as he moved, checking the tiny figures he had penciled on it when measuring distances with a scale-gauge. Two hundred forty yards and a left and a right turn and over a brook. He hopped. O.K. on the brook and his estimated location was correct Now 615 yards rising straight for what was about 300 feet up in the distance. Then a sharp left and along what had seemed on the map to be a level track along a bluff. Yes. And then…

The old road turned right again but the side trail over the notch should go straightish before it turned left His keen eyes spotted the worn path and opening in the forest wall and he swung in through a grove of hemlocks brightened here and there by a white birch.

He crested the mountain top as the sun disappeared over the mountain at his back, and he went down the rocky trail in gathering dusk. It was more difficult now to measure distances by checking his strides, but he paused when he estimated he was three hundred yards from the floor of the little valley. Here was about where the trigger of the first trap would be.

They wouldn't be likely to put it higher. Too much trouble to service or reach — guards get careless if they have a long hike every day for what they think is a useless patrol. The map showed the next depression in the mountain's surface to be 460 yards to the north. Patiently Nick worked his way through the trees and brush until the land dropped down to a tiny mountain brook. When he cupped the cool water in his hand to drink, he noted that the night was completely black. Good timing, he decided.

Almost every stream has some sort of passage near it, worn by an occasional hunter, sometimes only one or two a year — but in most places over a thousand years. This unfortunately was not one of the better paths. It was an hour before Nick saw the first glimmer of light from below. Two hours before he'd seen an ancient wooden springhouse in the faint light of the moon through the trees. When he halted at the edge of the valley clearing, his watch glowed 10:56.

Now — patience. He remembered an old saying of Chief Standing Horse, with whom he made occasional pack trips into the Rockies. It was part of many advices to warriors — he who moves last lives.

A quarter-mile out on the valley floor, exactly where it had been indicated by a T-shaped black mark on the map, was the giant Lord mansion — or former Lord mansion. Three stories high, it twinkled with lights like a medieval castle when the lord of the manor was throwing a brawl. The twin lights of cars moved now and again around its far side, and in and out of a parking lot to the rear.

Up the valley, to the right, were other lights, which the map had indicated might be former servants' buildings or stables or shops or greenhouses — it had been impossible to deduce exactly.

Then be saw what he had been really watching for. Framed in the lights for a moment, a man and a dog crossed the edge of the valley near him. Something slung on the man's shoulder could be a weapon. They walked on a gravel path that paralleled the tree line and continued on past the parking area toward the buildings in the rear. The dog was a Doberman or shepherd. The two patrolling figures almost disappeared from sight as they left the lighted areas, then Nick's sensitive ears caught another sound. A click and a clang and the faint crunch of feet on gravel interrupted their beat, paused, then went on.

Nick followed the man, his own steps silent on the thick, smooth grass, and a few minutes later he saw and then felt what he had suspected — the back of the estate was secluded from the main house by a high wire fence whose top was three strands of taut barbed wire which was outlined ominously against the moonlight. He followed the fence across the valley, saw the gate through which the gravel path pierced the fence, and found another gate 200 yards further on which barred the black-topped road. He followed the lush landscaping on the edge of the road, slipped into the parking lot and hid in the shadow of a limousine.

The people in the valley liked big cars — the parking lot, or what he could see of it under the two floodlights, seemed to harbor only cars costing over $5,000. When a shiny Lincoln drove in, Nick followed the two men who got out of it toward the house — keeping a respectful distance in their rear. As he walked he straightened his tie, creased his hat precisely, brushed himself and pulled his jacket smoothly over his big frame. The man who had shambled along the Leesburg street became a respectable-looking man of substance who wore his clothes carelessly and you still knew they were of the finest quality.

The walk from parking lot to house made a gentle curve through the grounds. It was lit by overhead floods at long intervals and foot-level lights spaced frequently in the manicured shrubs that flanked it Nick strolled casually, a dignified guest expecting a welcome. He lit a long Churchill cigar, one of three carried in a neat leather case in one of the many inner pockets of his special jacket It is surprising how few people look suspiciously at a man strolling along enjoying a cigar or a pipe. Run past a cop with your laundry under your arm and you may get shot — stroll past him with the crown jewels in a dispatch case, blowing a blue cloud of fragrant Havana, and the officer nods with respect to your passage.

When he reached the rear of the house Nick hopped over the shrubs into the darkness and headed for the rear area, where lights under metal shields shown on wooden stockades which ought to conceal garbage cans. They did. He popped into the nearest door, saw a hall and a laundry, and followed the hall toward the center of the house. He saw a giant kitchen, but the activities were at the end away from him. The hall ended at a door which opened onto another corridor much more lavishly decorated and furnished than the service hall. Just inside the door, on the service side, were four lockers. Nick quickly opened one, saw brooms and cleaning equipment and tucked his hat behind some mops. He stepped into the main part of the house — and directly into the path of a lean man in a black suit who looked at him questioningly. The expression of question changed to suspicion, but before he could speak Nick raised his hand.

In precise Alastair Williams — but quite hurriedly — he asked: "My dear fellow is there a W.C. on this floor? All this wonderful ale, you know, but I'm most uncomfortable…"

Nick danced from foot to foot, looking imploringly at the man.

"A what? You mean the…"

"A water closet old boy! For God's sake where is the water closet?"

The man suddenly understood and the humor of the situation and his own sadism sidetracked his suspicions. "A closet for water, eh? You want a drink?"

"Heavens, no," Nick exploded. "Thank you…" He turned away, still dancing, letting his face flush until he knew the ruddy features must be glowing.

"Here, Mac," the man said. "Follow me."

He led Nick around a corner, along the rim of a giant room sullen in full oak paneling and hanging tapestries, and into a shallow alcove with a door at the end. "There." He pointed, chuckled — then realizing he might be needling an important guest he went quickly away.

Nick washed, groomed himself carefully, checked his make-up and sauntered back into the large room, drawing luxuriously on the long black cigar. Sounds came from a large archway at the far end. He strolled to it and surveyed a fascinating scene.

The room was a giant oblong with tall French windows at one end and another archway at the other. On a polished floor near the windows seven couples danced to smooth music coming from a stereo console. Near the center of the far wall was a small oval bar around which a dozen men clustered, and in conversation centers formed by colorful U groupings of couches other men chatted, some relaxed, some with their heads together. From the far archway sounded the click-click of billiard balls.

In addition to the women dancing, all of whom looked like polished types — either wives of the wealthy or the more intelligent, expensive whores — there were only four women in the room. Almost all the men had the affluent look. There were a few dinner jackets, but the impression was deeper by far than that.

Nick walked in stately dignity down the five broad steps into the room, unobtrusively studying the occupants. Discard the dinner jackets, imagine these men garbed in the robes of an English gathering at a royal court in feudal England, or assembled after a Bourbon dinner at Versailles. Plump bodies, soft hands, too-quick smiles, calculating eyes, and always the buzz of conversation. Discreet questions, veiled suggestions, complex plans, the threads of intrigues displayed one at a time and woven as circumstances permitted.

He saw several Congressmen, two generals in civilian clothes, Robert Quitlock, Harry Cushing and a dozen other men his photographic mind cataloged from the recent Washington scene. He made his way to the bar, obtained a tall whisky and soda — "No ice if you please" — and turned to meet the questioning glance of Akito Tsogu Nu Moto.