The Code

Four

I heard Sheila cry out and then her voice choked off. They had her in the kitchen. I didn't know what they were doing to her, but I could imagine.

I had to find something to cut my bonds. I remembered the broken lamp that had fallen to the floor when I wrestled one of the killers against the bedside table. By rolling over, I could see under the bed to the other side. The shattered lamp still lay there. I rolled to the bed and under it. When I rolled out the other side, I was within reach of the lamp.

One piece of the lamp's base looked sharp enough to cut the sheets binding my hands. I got up on my rear and squirmed around and felt for the jagged hunk of glass. Since I couldn't see what I was doing, I'd probably slice up my hands, too, but that couldn't be helped.

I was sitting there sawing away when one of the men came back.

"Look at you," he said. It was Sid, the one Moose had sent after the car. "You stupid jerk. It would take you an hour to get loose that way."

I heard Sheila cry out again, pain and terror in her voice. I clenched my teeth and worked at my bonds with the piece of glass clutched in my bleeding fingers. As long as the man in the doorway didn't stop me, I'd keep trying to get free.

"The girl's telling you the truth. There's no sense in torturing her," I said.

"You don't understand Moose. He enjoys this kind of stuff. Even if he believed her, he'd probably do the same thing."

"He must have got himself a lot of kicks down in Florida, when you shot up Abruze's cottage."

"Yeah, the four of them were lying there dead and Moose grabbed the shotgun away from me and gave them another blast. Laughing all the time. He's one crazy bastard, that Moose." Sid said this in the tone of voice most people would use if they said a friend was the life of the party.

I sliced the flesh of a knuckle and winced. "Why did you give the money to the girl in the first place?"

"We had to stash it. We couldn't show up rich overnight, could we? For six months after those killings, any strange dollar that fell in the underworld was going to be reported to the men who run the Mob. You know that."

I had almost forgotten the lie I'd told Moose, that I was a professional hit man sent to take care of Sheila Brant. I said, "I was just carrying out a contract. I'm not in the Mafia."

"We broke two of the Mob's laws. We heisted some of their dough and we knocked off an honored capo. They've been looking for us harder than the cops have. For the girl, too. We thought we had the girl and the money stashed in a safe place, but she disappeared."

The conversation was giving me precious time and I tried to prolong it. "I'd like to know how you happened to find the girl. I thought I had the inside track there."

Sid walked over to me. Matter-of-factly he kicked me in the ribs. "Enough of the stalling. You aren't going to get loose, pal." He produced a revolver and fitted a silencer on it "Moose always gives me the jobs he isn't interested in. He gets the girl and I get you."

I realized that he had come to the room to kill me. Believing that I worked for the Mafia, they weren't going to leave me alive to tell my bosses what I'd learned. I squirmed across the floor toward the man with the gun, determined to go out resisting. He only backed away, scorning my futile efforts to reach him. I saw the barrel of the revolver rise and point at me like a cold and deadly eye. Falling on my side, I rolled toward the gunman, trying to knock him off balance. He backed up again, the revolver unwavering. Then he shot me.

I heard the pop of the silenced weapon and felt the bullet tear into my chest like a blazing-hot rivet. He shot me again. I felt a stab of pain when the second bullet hit my neck, but I seemed now to be a participant in a dream. The shot was like a bee sting, no more.

Lying on my side, my shirt blotted with blood, I watched Sid move in my direction, almost soundless on his sneakered feet. My vision was fuzzy. By the time he reached me, he appeared to be no more than a vague shape.

He put his foot against me and pushed me on my back. I gazed helplessly up at him. He pointed the revolver again. I thought he was going to administer the final coup, a bullet between the eyes, but he lowered the weapon. He had decided to let me bleed to death.

My eyes stared at the ceiling. I was paralyzed with weakness. Sid reached down and flipped open my jacket to look at the chest wound. He seemed satisfied. He went away.

I could hardly see the ceiling now. Darkness was creeping in at the corners of my mind. I thought about Hawk and how he'd react when he learned he'd lost a Killmaster. I supposed he'd put a posthumous letter of commendation in my file before he closed it for good — epitaph for an agent killed in the line of duty.

I thought about Pat Steele, the redhead who'd wished me luck. She might be a long time finding out that I had followed N1 and N2 and David Kirby into the ranks of those whose luck had failed. I thought about Kirby and Sheila Brant and told myself I'd let them down by getting myself killed....

But then, like a swimmer coming up for air, I burst out of the blackness that had engulfed me. I couldn't explain it, but I was still alive. My eyes fixed on the ceiling and brought it into hazy focus. I had no conception of time, no idea how long I had been unconscious.

The house was silent, caught in an eerie stillness. A faint light had entered the room, as though dawn had come outside. The killers were gone, I thought I was alone.

I heard a car. From the sound of the motor, I knew it had stopped outside the house. The car's door slammed. I lay listening, hoping. The front door opened. I heard footsteps in the living room. They moved toward the kitchen.

I worked my mouth, but no sound came out. I was too weak. When I tried to move, the ceiling seemed to dip and I almost fainted.

The footsteps again, steady and heavy. A man appeared in the doorway and looked in on me. He wore a striped suit and a hat. I made a sound, a strained grunt.

He heard me. He walked into the room and gazed down at me. I saw cold grey eyes in an expressionless, pockmarked face. Finally he knelt beside me. He took out a knife and slit the front of my shirt and examined my wound. I couldn't tell if he was interested in helping me or merely curious about how long I had to live.

"Who are you?" he said at last. He had a faint Sicilian accent.

My mouth formed the word. "Harper."

He got up and went to the bathroom and came back with a household first-aid kit. He knew something about gunshot wounds. He stopped my bleeding quickly, then cut up a sheet and began winding the strips around my chest like a bandage. He paid no attention to my neck wound, so I assumed it was only a graze and not serious enough to be of concern.

"Who shot you, Harper?"

I shook my head to indicate I didn't know. I was in no condition to talk about what had happened.

He studied me for a minute as if deciding what to do about me, then slit the strips of cloth binding my wrists and ankles. That pockmarked face of his was vaguely familiar, but I couldn't place it.

Rising, he glanced around the room once more, then left the house without speaking to me again. I heard his car start up and drive away.

The name sprang suddenly into my mind. Valante. Marco Valante. I had seen his picture in the newspapers during a Justice Department investigation of organized crime. According to reports, he was one of the men at the top.

When I remembered that he had spent a few minutes in the kitchen before he found me, I got to my hands and knees. Crawling took a great deal of effort. I was moving slowly toward the door when my hand brushed the address book. My fingers closed around it.

I had to rest anyway. I lay on my side, fighting off dizziness, and examined the book. It must have fallen from the pocket of one of the intruders at the time we were struggling. Recalling how I had torn Moose's coat, I decided the book belonged to him. Thrusting it into my pocket, I started crawling again. I had to pause and rest three times before I finally reached the kitchen.

Sprawled in the doorway, I raised my head and looked at Sheila, who lay motionless near a chair where she'd been tied. The strips of cloth that had bound her still dangled on the chair's arms and lower rungs.

I found my voice. "Sheila?"

The fact that she didn't move or reply did not surprise me. But I croaked her name again in a voice charged with pain and fury. Then I crawled to her. The fragile face was bruised and bloody. The hoods had worked her over savagely.

I touched the girl's outstretched wrist. It was cold. I closed my eyes for a minute, bringing my emotions under control. Then I pulled myself nearer the body.

She had been killed, I saw, by a blow so powerful that it had broken her neck. The one man who could have delivered such a blow was Moose. The son-of-a-bitch, I thought.

I felt guilty because I had brought her back and had failed to protect her. I was still alive and she was dead. But the strongest emotion that coursed through me, the one that filled me with determination, was fury. I would come out of this and I would get Moose and his friends, I thought I would do it not only for Dave Kirby but for Sheila.

Somewhere I discovered more strength than I'd thought I had. I reached up and grabbed hold of the edge of the kitchen table and pulled myself to my feet. Swaying, I looked around me, then staggered to the window. I tore down the curtains and covered the girl's nude body with them. I collapsed into a chair, until I regained enough strength to stagger into the living room and make the incredibly slow journey to the telephone. I pawed the receiver off the hook and dialed the operator.

My croaked words didn't make much sense, but I succeeded in communicating my need for help. When one of Bonham's two policemen arrived at the house, I was unconscious on the floor, the receiver clamped in my hand so tightly he had trouble prying it loose.

I was a novelty for the staff at the hospital in the county seat near Bonham. They treated few gunshot wounds except during hunting season when overeager sportsmen usually managed to wing one or two other hunters, and I had the additional attraction of being the luckiest man they'd ever met.

"The one bullet only tore the flesh on your neck. You could get hurt worse playing touch football," the doctor said. "But you were remarkably lucky on the one that got you in the chest." He held up the shoulder holster I'd been wearing. "This slowed the slug down and angled it away from your vital organs. The bullet went through the leather rigging and was slanted from its path. You bled enough to lead the gunman to believe he'd made the right connection. You're very lucky, Mr. Harper."

"Yeah," I said. I was lucky, but Sheila was dead.

"Your Good Samaritan helped, too. He did a splendid job of bandaging you up. I wonder if he's had some medical training."

I grinned when I heard the Mafia's Marco Valante being termed a Good Samaritan.

The day and a half I had spent in the hospital had put me back in stride. I was still weak, but I felt close to par. I could move around my room, the doctor said, and if all went well, I could check out of the hospital within a week. He didn't know it, but I planned to check out unofficially inside thirty minutes.

I walked to the window and looked down at the hospital parking lot. The battered Ford with the souped-up engine was sitting there waiting. I'd had it brought over from Bonham that morning. Moose and his companions had almost two days' start on me. I had no intention of letting their trail get any colder.

"It's been a long time since I've seen a man in your physical condition," the doctor said. The beating you took would have laid me up for days. But don't press yourself too soon. You might find out that you're not as strong as you think."

"I'll be careful, Doc." I wasn't even thinking about what I was saying. I was thinking about getting Moose.

After the doctor left the room, I removed my hospital robe and donned street clothing. I strapped on the bullet-scarred shoulder rig, my good luck charm, and checked the Luger.

My plans had not been cleared with Hawk. So far we'd had no opportunity to confer at length on the happenings in Bonham. We had talked once on the telephone since the police rushed me to the hospital, a necessity because my presence in the house with a slain girl had required a bit of explaining.

In fact, the Bonham police had threatened to arrest me. They were very upset about the rash of fatalities that had broken out in their town on the day of my arrival. But Hawk had pulled some strings, and suddenly there had been no more questioning, no more pressure. There had been no stories in the newspapers, either.

I left the hospital by the back stairs. I was walking briskly across the parking lot when a long car turned off the highway and came to a halt alongside me. A door swung open and Hawk said, "Nick, I'm glad you're up and about."

Hoping I didn't look like a school-kid caught playing hooky, I obeyed his signal to climb into the limousine.

"You were planning to call me, I suppose. Certainly you wouldn't leave the hospital and take up the chase again without letting me know."

"Certainly not," I said.

"You weren't afraid that I'd veto the idea and say you were in no condition to pursue a wolfpack of killers?"

"No, sir," I replied, respect in my voice. "You know I'd take myself off a job if I didn't feel I was able to handle it."

"When you get too old for this line of work, Nick, I'm going to recommend you for the diplomatic service," Hawk sighed. "I was in Denver anyway and since I suspected you'd pull something like this, I came on over. Would you like someone assigned to you as a reinforcement?"

"No sir. I'd rather follow up on it alone."

Hawk slid the soundproof glass panel between us and the two men in the front seat.

"It's no longer simply a question of avenging Kirby, is it, Nick?"

I shook my head. "There's the girl, too. But there's more to it than personal vengeance. The man who leads the killers is a sadist who'll go on slaughtering people if he isn't stopped."

Hawk flipped down a panel in front of him and tugged out a tape recorder. He pressed a button. In an official-sounding voice, he said, "Give me your report, N3."

I related the events that had occurred since my arrival in Bonham and then Hawk cut off the recorder. "That takes care of the official part of it. The rest that is said is strictly between the two of us. I'm going to permit you to continue with this on your terms. Get the bastards, Nick."

"You realize our security was breached at the base on the Carolina coast, don't you?"

"I'll take care of that," Hawk said in a hard voice.

"I think the base was infiltrated by an agent of the Mafia. They were after the information we'd gathered on the girl, and they were seeking Frank Abruze's killers. They can't have a pack of mavericks knocking off a man to whom they'd promised security and retirement. It's a direct challenge and an affront."

"Agreed," Hawk said. "I've drawn the same conclusions."

"There are some missing pieces to the puzzle. Like why an assassin apparently working for the Mafia tried to kill me, but Marco Valante lent me a hand. Quiz your Mafia experts about that. Maybe they can come up with a theory."

"Consider it done."

"The men who killed Abruze and Kirby are looking for their blood money now. I'm convinced Sheila told them the truth and that she didn't know what happened to the cash. They killed her for no good reason except that killing is Moose's bag. There are three of them, by the way, not four."

"What lead do you have to follow from here?" Hawk asked.

"This address book Moose dropped while we were wrestling the other night. There are seven names in it I'm going to pay a visit to each of these people. Maybe One of them will lead me to Moose."

"If Moose and his confederates or the Mafia don't get you first." Hawk flipped through the address book. "These are women's names, all of them."

"And each in a different city. Moose has lady friends all over the map."

"I'll have a check made of the FBI's files. Maybe they'll tell us something about Moose and his friends. From your description, he's the size of the Jolly Green Giant. That's a start."

I reached for the address book, but Hawk was in no hurry to return it "Nick, this is more than a list of names. If s a sexual catalog. Did you read these comments Moose wrote about the seven girls?"

"Yes," I said. "Pretty racy stuff."

"He describes what each of them does best in the sexual line. Trudy in Los Angeles sounds sensational."

"Personally, I liked the references he gave Cora in Vegas. Tell you what, I'll let you know how accurate Moose's notes are."

"You're a strapping physical specimen, my boy, but I don't see how you could personally explore the subject in depth without wearing yourself down to skin and bones," Hawk said in an amused voice. "The delights of Barbara, for example, are such that even Moose couldn't describe them. He simply underlined her name and put exclamation points behind it."

"Maybe he did that because she's the only virgin in the bunch."

"I rather doubt that Moose knows any virgins," Hawk said. "I suppose it isn't necessary for me to point out that all of these girls are probably involved in underworld activity and will most likely be involved with hoods who won't hesitate to kill you if they get suspicious?"

"It'll be a fun trip, all right."

Hawk closed the book and passed it to me. "What else, Nick? Are you holding back anything?"

"No," I lied. "That's it. I'll be in touch."

He spoke my name again as I was getting out of the car. "Sheila made quite an impact on you, didn't she? What was she like?"

"I couldn't say. I didn't get to know her that well."

What I hadn't mentioned was that one of the names in Moose's book could belong to the girl we'd known as Sheila Brant. AXE had been unable to pin a past on her, but she must have had one before she met Frank Abruze.

I was pursuing Sheila's ghost as well as her killers.