The Code

Three

I had violated one of the longest-standing rules in my own book. A smart agent never holstered his gun while someone else was holding theirs. Now I was in what was at best an embarrassing position. At worst it could turn out to be fatal.

"I deserve this for being careless," I admitted to the girl who was nudging the revolver into my ribs, "but I would like to have it explained to me."

"The keys, Ned. I want the keys to your car. Then I want you to get out. I'm not going back to Bonham. Someone might be waiting for me there."

"You intend to ditch me and take off alone again?"

"I'll take my chances. I've survived so far."

"You'd have had a hell of a time surviving tonight if I hadn't shown up."

While I argued with her, I was assessing my situation. My right hand, the one nearest her, rested lightly on the steering wheel. I knew how fast I could bring that hand around in a karate blow that would strike Sheila Brant's lovely white throat like an executioner's ax. But I couldn't run the risk of serious injury to the girl, and also the blow might cause her to jerk the trigger of the revolver and piledrive a bullet into me at close range. I didn't like either of those possibilities.

Sheila's voice rose higher. "I'd rather not shoot you. But I'll do it if I have to."

"Shoot away, baby," I said. "I'm not giving you any keys."

We sat there, neither of us moving, while she decided if she was going to pull the trigger. I felt a tiny drop of sweat forming along my hairline.

I didn't know Sheila Brant well enough to place my life in her hands. She might have been involved in the death of AXE agent David Kirby; she might be panicky enough to kill me out of fright; hell, for all I knew, she hated all men and would enjoy sending a slug ripping into one. But I couldn't let her get away again. Inside her head was something I had to have, a secret so important that someone was determined to see that Sheila never shared it with AXE.

"You've got a lot of nerve," she said finally.

With a ragged sigh, she pulled the gun from my side and sank back against the seat. "I guess I'll have to string along with you. I don't seem to have what it takes to kill you."

"I'm glad to hear it." I took out my keys and turned the car around.

"Where are you going to take me?"

"Right now, back to Bonham. As soon as I can make proper arrangements, to a place where your life won't be in danger."

Bouncing across the field, I drove past Copper Beard, who had started to crawl toward his friends, dragging his wounded leg. Scarface was sitting at the side of the road cradling his broken arm and the man called Georgie lay curled in a motionless ball. A splendid group of All-American boys, I thought. As the car lurched across the ditch and into the highway, Sheila said, "Aren't you going to look at the man you shot, to see if he's dead?"

"No," I told her. "I know he's dead "

I gave the accelerator a shove and my battered car took off like a streak. The little AXE mechanic would have been proud of the way his baby had performed tonight, I thought. In fact, the car was about the only thing that had worked according to Hawk's well-laid plans.

I wanted to get Sheila to some secure spot under AXE jurisdiction, but first I had to call Hawk and set it up. I also had to find out what had happened to Meredith, why he had failed to show up at the hotel.

"I've never used this gun," Sheila said. "I never shot anyone. Maybe that's the reason I couldn't shoot you."

"I was hoping you had another reason. Like maybe you were growing fond of me."

"Not yet," she said. "But I suppose it could happen."

My hand touched her warm thigh. She didn't seem to mind. "Give me the gun," I said.

After a moment's hesitation, she dropped the weapon into my palm. A token of trust, I thought I was making some progress.

"Why do you want it?" she asked me.

"Just a precaution. In case you get panicky enough to point it at me again."

I slid the .38 in my left-hand pocket. The speedometer needle trembled on 70 as we raced back toward town.

"Those three men. Were they sent to kill me, Ned?"

"Their leader said no." I couldn't make out her expression in the shadowy car. "He said all they had in mind was a little friendly rape."

"And what do you have in mind for me?"

"Several things." I took a long curve without slackening speed. "Rape isn't one of them."

"Under the proper circumstances that wouldn't be necessary."

I grinned in the darkness. "How did you happen to hook up with Frank Abruze?"

"I was down and out in Vegas after failing to make it as a showgirl. He came along. He was old enough to be my father, but he had money."

"Did you know what line of business he was in?"

"I wasn't born yesterday." She was silent for a long moment. "There are a great many good-looking girls in Las Vegas scrambling for a break. I was just one of a crowd. When I found out my face wasn't my fortune, I started using my body."

I dimmed my lights as a Greyhound bus passed us, going the other way.

"I wish I was on that bus," Sheila said. "All right, Ned, I told you part of my story. Don't you think you ought to tell me yours?"

"Which part would you like first?"

"Who you are, why you came galloping out of nowhere and into my life, and how you happen to know about my relationship with Frank Abruze."

"Let's just say I work for an organization that's interested in locating Frank Abruze's killers."

"But you're not in the Mob." It was half a question.

"No. Maybe you remember a man named David Kirby. He was a friend of mine."

"I remember the name. He came to see Abruze. That happens to be all I know about your Mr. Kirby. I didn't ask Abruze questions about his business."

"Four people were killed in that cottage in the keys, but you walked out alive, Sheila. How did you manage it?"

She didn't answer me. Instead, she said, "You want me to finger the killers. In return, your organization will promise to protect me. Is that the deal?"

"That's the deal." I spotted the lights of Bonham ahead and slowed down. "What do you say?"

"I'll think it over."

"The way I see it, baby, you don't have any choice."

The town went to bed early. Only the restaurant, the bar, and the hotel remained open for business. I stopped at the darkened gas station. "What time do these people usually close?"

"Around eight o'clock. Why do you ask?"

That meant Meredith had been at least an hour and a half overdue before I left the hotel to chase the cyclists. With a flashlight in one hand and the Luger in the other, I got out of the car and prowled around the station. I finally found Meredith lying in a patch of weeds about fifteen steps beyond a pile of abandoned oil drums.

He had said he'd be careful, but he hadn't been careful enough. His throat was slashed.

Sheila came up behind me. She gasped when she saw the huddled body pinned in the beam of my light. "I know that man. He worked at the station."

I clicked off the light. "Yeah."

"But he hadn't worked here long. Who was he really, Ned?"

"Another friend of mine. He'd been watching you."

"And now he's dead." Her voice rode high, panic in it. "How are you going to protect me when your own people aren't safe?"

It was a fair question, I thought.

Sheila turned away from me and ran across a vacant lot, through knee-high weeds. Chances were she didn't know where she was going. She only knew that she wanted to get away.

I sprang after her. Wet weeds slapped my trouser legs as I ran. I could hear the girl's breath pumping loudly before I caught up with her. Lunging, I grabbed one of her arms and yanked her back toward me.

"Let me go," she panted, struggling. "I don't want your protection. I'm better off without it."

Her fingernails clawed for my face, but I caught her other wrist. Her breasts heaved against my chest and her breath was hot on my throat as she tried to wrench away. I wrapped my arms around her and forced her to stand motionless.

"Meredith made a mistake. I won't make one." I was talking softly, hoping to calm her. "I'll get you out of this town tonight. We'll go to your place and I'll make arrangements and then we'll put Bonham behind us."

"Ned." She spoke my name in a voice as low and as soft as mine. "I know what a man likes." Struggling no longer, she stood with her breasts against me, her thighs to mine. "I'll be nice to you. Oh, so very nice. But please let me go."

I wasn't insulted by her offer. She was desperate, and had resorted to her best pitch, and I couldn't blame her for that.

"You make it sound attractive. But my job is to find out what you know. I couldn't let you run off alone anyway. It would be throwing you to the wolves. Someone is very serious about putting you out of the way. Serious enough to knock off Meredith and to try to do the same with me. Serious enough to send an assassin after you, Sheila. I ran into him today in the hotel. He was packing a rifle and he intended to pick you off from a hotel window when you arrived for work."

She froze in my arms. "You think Abruze's killers did all that?"

"It figures. You are the only one who could identify them."

A bitter laugh spilled out of her. "I don't have the slightest idea who sent the assassin, but I can tell you one thing for certain. It wasn't the men who shot Frank Abruze and Kirby. No, indeed. They want me alive."

"Baby, you are full of little surprise." Fingers wound tightly around her wrist, I pulled her toward the car and shoved her into it.

I hated to leave Meredith's body where it was, but his killer might still be around, looking for us. I had to get the girl to a safe place as quickly as possible.

"Tell me about it, Sheila," I said as I started up the car.

"You won't be pleased."

"I probably won't. Tell me anyway."

"Frank Abruze didn't pick me up in Las Vegas by accident. I was introduced to him. This man I knew came to see me and said Abruze was in town and liked my type. He said he could arrange for us to get together. Which he did. Only later, after Frank decided he'd like to keep me around, this man got in touch with me again. He said I owed him and he was ready to collect."

"You think he planted you with Abruze so you could spy for him?"

"Something like that. He knew the Mafia was going to deliver $200,000 to Abruze at the cottage. He demanded that I let him know when the money arrived. He said it was going to be a holdup, but one one would get killed. I believed him. I was afraid he'd blow the whistle on me if I didn't do as he said. So I called him when the money got there."

I digested her story as I drove to her house.

"You know what I'm saying, don't you?" she asked in a savage voice. "You know what it meant when I made that call."

I unlocked the door of her house and put on the light in the living room. The Luger in my hand, I glanced around, then walked to the telephone.

"I set Abruze up," Sheila said. "They came and they killed him and his bodyguards and the man named Kirby. They shot them all. It was a slaughter."

"You didn't know what they were going to do," I told her.

I gave the long distance operator an emergency number. No matter where Hawk traveled, and that covered a lot of territory, the girl who answered the telephone at the emergency number knew how to get in touch with him quickly.

Sheila yanked open a cabinet and pulled out a bottle of bourbon. "I've told myself that. But it doesn't help a hell of a lot. Frank Abruze was a hood, but he treated me decently. I got him killed." She held up the bottle. "Do you want a shot of this?"

I shook my head. I had Hawk's girl on the line. I spoke the code words that assured her I wasn't an imposter, "Aberdeen blue." I told the girl I wanted to speak to the man.

"I'll relay the message, N3," she said in a crisp, efficient voice. "Give me your number and hang up. He'll call back within fifteen minutes."

"Hurry it up. Time is burning my coattails."

I hung up. Sheila had taken the bottle into the kitchen. I followed, and found her standing at the sink crying.

She rubbed at her eyes. She took down a tumbler, poured two fingers of bourbon and downed it like a drink of tea. "This Kirby. How well did you know him?"

"We were friends."

"He picked the wrong day to visit Frank Abruze." She dropped the glass and it splintered on the floor. She buried her face in my shirt front. "Who could have sent the assassin, Ned? The Mafia?"

"Maybe. Maybe they found out you set up their esteemed elder statesman."

"I was afraid they would. I was running from them and from Abruze's killers." Her fingers dug into my sleeves. "You blame me for those four deaths, don't you?"

"Not as much as you blame yourself."

She tugged at me, placed her mouth on mine. Her lips were warm. "Ned, take me to the bedroom."

"I'm waiting for a phone call."

"You've been thinking of making love to me. Do it now. I need it now."

It was true that the thought had occurred to me a few times. Like about a dozen. The first time had been when I saw her in the film Meredith had shot. But there were questions still unanswered between us.

I stroked Sheila's soft blonde hair. "Later."

"It would make me feel better. Please."

"Later," I promised again. To prove I meant it, I lowered my mouth to hers. I felt her moist lips part, felt her darting tongue. My hand crept up to cup her round breast. She was wearing no bra.

When I heard the noise, I wheeled away from her. I hit the switch on the wall and threw on the light at the back door. The yard lay silent. I stepped outside with the Luger ready and listened, testing the air like a hound on the hunt. Something was wrong. I felt it. Sheila had rented a house on a dead end street. Her nearest neighbors were too far away to hear anything less than an explosion. Their lighted windows formed small orange squares in the dense shadows far down the street. Sheila had wanted privacy, but privacy could be a trap. I thought of how easy it would be for someone to corner us here.

The telephone jangled inside. I backed to the door and bolted it, then moved quickly through the kitchen and into the living room. I snatched the receiver off the cradle.

A crisp, efficient female voice said, "Hold the line, N3. Mr. Hawk is coming on."

"What's up, Nick?" he asked.

"I have that package you sent me to pick up. I'm ready to deliver it."

"You got results fast."

"I had some help. Is the Denver location okay?"

"Take her there. I'll call ahead and make the arrangements for you. What's the nature of your opposition, Nick?"

"I can t give you a clear rundown on that yet. But the heat is intense. I believe we may be dealing with two different groups," I said. "Meredith has dropped out."

"Then we shouldn't be wasting time talking. Get out of there." He slammed his receiver down.

"If you want to take any belongings with you, pack them," I told Sheila. "We're leaving. Everything is going to be A-Okay."

"You really believe that, Ned?"

"Of course I do. And I'm a damn good prophet." I was trying to bolster her nerve. Actually, I wouldn't fee! safe until we were surrounded by people I trusted.

"There was another question you should have asked me. When are you going to get around to it?"

"I thought I'd let you tell me your own way," I said.

"All right. Maybe you've wondering why Abruze's killers want me alive? The answer is, they think I have the $200,000."

While she packed, I stood at a front window and watched the dark street through a crack in the blinds. I saw no cars, no lights, no movement. The sound I'd heard earlier could have been a stray dog or cat, a motor coughing in the distance, a dozen things. But my uneasiness persisted.

Sheila stayed in the bedroom too long. I clicked the blind shut and crossed to the bedroom door. I turned the knob and opened the door on darkness.

Wondering why she had turned off the light, I shoved the door wider with my foot. "Sheila?"

"I'm waiting for you, Ned."

Light from the room behind me fell across the bed where she lay. Her nude body was a white blur against the bed's blue cover.

"There's one more thing to be attended to," she said. "Come here and make love to me, darling."

She was beautiful, a work of art.

"It won't take long, sweetheart," she said, her voice low and husky. "I'm so hot I'm burning on a short fuse."

She was blonde all the way, the genuine article. One sleek leg curled and she turned on her side and held out her arms. The light coming through the open door caressed her full breasts.

"For God's sake, Ned, put that gun down and come here."

I took two steps toward her, walking the band of light like an alley cat walking a fence. I could make out only the vague shapes of furniture in shadowed corners of the room. The bathroom door to my left was closed, the windows curtains drawn. Some women liked to make love in pitch black, but I didn't think Sheila would be one of them. A warning was ticking steadily at the back of my mind as I reached the bed.

"I told you this could wait," I said.

"Later may be too late."

Her voice could have changed slightly, but maybe I was wrong. Maybe I was only imagining there was a message in her words.

I stood over her. I could hear her breathing. Harsh, excited. I ran one hand over her breasts and there was perspiration on them. I touched her lean belly with my fingertips and I could feel her trembling. I realized how tightly she was holding herself in.

"Yeah," I said, still touching her. "I guess we should do it now."

I felt the muscles in her belly leap in tension as she pulled in a deep, frightened breath. That, too, was a warning, as much as she could give me.

In less time than it would have required to turn around and take a step back toward the door, I thought it out. Sheila was playing a role and she was playing it well because her life depended on it. There was an intruder in the dark bedroom.

Wondering where he was, I glanced around. At the same time, for the benefit of my hidden audience, I said, "You're very persuasive, baby. Tell me again how much you want me to come to bed with you."

"You know how much, Ned." She tried to make her voice playful.

There was a lamp on the bedside table near me, but if I tugged the cord, the sudden burst of light might blind me long enough to get me killed. I ruled that out.

"Shed your clothes, darling," Sheila purred. "Then I'll tell you all sorts of things you'll like."

"I'll bet," I said.

She had been told to get me undressed, and that was not bad thinking on the part of my hidden adversary. A man seldom hangs onto a firearm while he's peeling off his drawers.

Reaching down to Sheila, I slid my hand under the small of her back and raised her off the bed, sank my mouth into the pit of her throat. My lips grazed up to her ear and I whispered, "Where is he?"

He was so close that he heard even the whisper. He rose up from a crouch on the other side of the bed.

I threw the naked girl aside and plucked the Luger from its holster, but I didn't get a chance to fire. A second man sprang on me from behind, pinning my arms to my sides.

I hadn't counted on doing battle with a team.

"Hold him," the big man on the other side of the bed grunted to his friend.

Driving my heel back, I caught the man behind me on the shin and he cursed, but I failed to break his hold. He knew what he was doing.

The big man scrambled across the bed and hit me in the face with a .357 Magnum. He was strong. The blow tore my lip, loosened teeth, laced a cut in my cheek.

I brought up my foot, lashing for the big man's groin, but he anticipated the move and danced away. He was as fast on his feet as a boxer.

To my surprise, he laughed. "Looks like we got us a handful, Jake."

Jake was grunting, trying to hold me. I spun around and slammed him into the bedside table. The lamp crashed to the floor, but Jake hung on.

The big man moved in and hit me again. I felt as though I'd collided with a wall.

"Don't kill him," I heard Sheila crying. "Please don't kill him."

The bathroom door opened and another man entered the bedroom. My knees had sagged under me when the big man hit me the second time. My head was ringing. I gulped air and lunged backward driving Jake into the bedpost. He grunted in pain and I snapped his hold and brought my Luger up.

The third man came in on me from the side and cracked a gun barrel against my head. I staggered sideways, dropped the Luger, and would have fallen if my hands hadn't encountered the big man's coat. I felt cloth tear as I caught hold.

"Damn it, that's the limit," he said. He hit me so hard with his fist that I left my feet, landed on the floor on my shoulders, and skidded against the wall.

I tried to get up and couldn't. I was losing consciousness.

Fighting out of a pit of black, I slitted my eyes. I couldn't guess how long I had been out cold, but I was still in the bedroom, lying on my belly on the floor.

The intruders had pulled my jacket off my shoulders and down my arms to bind them and then they had tied my wrists behind me with strips of sheet. My feet were tied in the same manner. I moved my hands enough to determine that they had done a thorough job. I wouldn't be slipping out of my bonds.

"You got yourself a tough cookie here, doll," the big man said. I recognized his gravel voice. He padded toward me and prodded a foot in my side to see if I was still unconscious. I let him think I was.

"Leave him alone," Sheila said. "It isn't his fault he happened to be here when you came."

The big man laughed. He had a weird sense of humor. Cracking my eyes again, I watched him turn away from me. Without moving my head and giving myself away, I could see only his feet and legs. The legs, clad in dark cotton trousers, looked the size of railroad ties. He was wearing sneakers on his feet.

"We had a hard time finding you, doll, but now that we're back together again, it's going to be fun and games. Do you still love me?" From the scuffle of feet and the sound of Sheila spitting like a cat, I guessed that the man had touched her. Laughing, he said, "You'll get friendlier. Before the night's over, you'll be a lot friendlier."

It sounded like a threat.

"I helped you to surprise him. Doesn't that count for something?" Sheila asked.

"Don't con me, doll. You played that sexy little scene to perfection because you knew any slip-up would have got your boyfriend a big hole in the gut." His voice grew more serious. "You hung up on him? You dig the citizen, doll?"

"No. I just don't want him killed for nothing."

She was still playing a role, gambling for my life.

Cautiously I shifted my narrowed gaze, trying to locate the big man's companions. I spotted one of them to my right, squatting on the floor. Like the big man, he wore dark clothing and sneakers. A stocking was drawn over his head, distorting his features. I remembered that Hawk had said the killers I was looking for were cold, efficient professionals. This man and the giant with the gravel voice certainly warranted the description.

They had come to the house prepared to enter it without alarming the occupants. Except for the one faint sound I'd heard, the sound I'd been unable to pin down, they had succeeded. I assumed they'd come in through the bathroom window, probably slitting the screen and lifting it out. They'd seized Sheila when she entered the bedroom and then they'd forced her to strip off her clothing, and ordered her to lure me into the bed and off guard.

The man squatting nearby had searched my pockets and dumped their contents on the floor. He combed through them with his hand, pushing aside what failed to interest him. He looked my AXE lighter over and shoved it into his trousers pocket. Flipping open my wallet, he examined my identification. He appropriated the money and tossed the wallet over his shoulder. "Hey, Moose, catch."

"Ned Harper," the big man said, reading my driver's license. He chuckled. "According to this, he's a truck driver. How many truck drivers pack Lugers in shoulder holsters?"

I analyzed the conversation. These men didn't know I was an AXE agent, so they weren't associated with the assassin at the hotel. For the same reason, they probably weren't responsible for Meredith's murder. That confirmed my theory that I was dealing with two different sets of antagonists.

Sheila said, "I can't tell you why he carried a gun. I only met him today. He talked to me in the restaurant. I liked his style, so I let him bring me home."

"Needed a little sex, did you?"

"I haven't had any lately," she told Moose defiantly. "I've been too busy running from you to live a normal life."

I wriggled my arm furtively, seeing if I could disengage the stiletto up my sleeve. No chance. They hadn't pulled my jacket down far enough to reveal the knife's hiding place, but they had accidentally succeeded in blocking its use.

"This bird's no truck driver," said the man squatted near me. "All this stuff says he is, but 111 lay you odds he's not. You saw how he handled himself."

"Maybe the Mob sent him. That would be a laugh." The big man walked over to me and leaned down. He turned me over and rocked my face with slaps.

Gasping as though I was just regaining consciousness, I opened my eyes wide. I saw a face masked by a stocking, wide shoulders, a neck like a bull's. The hand that grasped my shirt front would have made two of mine and mine weren't small.

The stocking bit had puzzled me at first. Why did they conceal their features when Sheila obviously knew them well? Then I'd realized that they hadn't known who else they would encounter when they broke into the house. The masks were another precaution that labeled them as experts at their trade.

"How you feeling, stud?" the big man asked me.

My hair was damp with blood seeping from a cut near my ear and my head was throbbing with pain. When I spoke, my swelling lip made my voice sound as though I wore a boxer's mouthpiece. "I feel great."

The big man reached inside his coat, pulled his gun out of his belt, and rammed it against my Adam's apple, causing me to gasp. "I've got a crowded schedule and I can only spare you a minute. Are you a hit man? Did the Mob send you here with a contract on the blonde?"

Struggling to draw an even breath, I glanced toward Sheila, who was huddled in a chair, still nude but with the remains of a ripped sheet clutched to her, partly concealing her body. Her fragile face was pale, the dark eyes filled with fright. She was worried not only about herself but about me.

"Speak up or you've had it," Moose told me.

"Yes," I said hoarsely.

Moose nodded and released my shirt front, let me fall. "Hear that, Sheila? You're in trouble with the Mafia."

"You're the one who murdered Abruze."

"But they don't know that. They only know you were there and you didn't get killed, so you must have fingered him." Moose laughed loudly.

The third man appeared in the bedroom doorway. He was dressed like the others. "I pulled all the blinds and made a quick check of the house. The money doesn't seem to be here."

"If it is, she hid it well. Sheila's a bright girl. Aren't you, doll?"

"Too bright to cross you. I didn't steal the money. I've told you that."

"I left it with you. You were responsible for it."

"Moose, if I had it, I'd give it to you. Can't you see I'm scared to death?"

"You're scared, all right, but people will go through a lot for $200,000. Who knows that better than me?" He gestured to the man in the doorway. "Go down the road and get our car and bring it to the house. We may be here for most of the night, but Sheila is going to give us what we want."

"What if she doesn't talk?"

"Sid, I hate for a man to look on the dark side of things. We've spent months trailing the girl and now we've found her. What does it take to get you to realize that matters have taken a turn for the better?"

"Two hundred thousand bucks would help," Sid said.

"If she doesn't tell us, by God, we'll backtrack her through five states. We killed four men for that two hundred grand and it's ours."

Moose snatched the sheet away from the cowering girl. Then he grabbed her by the hair and yanked her out of the chair.

The last I saw of her, they were dragging her from the room.