The Mark of Cosa Nostra

Thirteen

The inside of the blurred cabin cleared slowly. I was lying flat on my stomach, looking through the porthole. The cabin-cruiser swayed gently at her moorings. Except for the soft lapping of water against her sides, there was nothing but silence. The crying sea gull had found its mate. I lifted the snout of Wilhelmina and pointed it at Quick Willie.

He had just pulled down Tanya’s skirt and was working it over her ankles. When he had it off, he let it drop to the deck. Then he straightened and looked down at her.

“You young ones sure look good,” he said, panting slightly. “I’m gonna really like this, baby. You’re put together real nice.”

Tanya remained silent. There was no fear in her eyes, and although her face was cut and bruised, you could still see the loveliness. She lay there, one knee raised slightly, arms high behind her head.

Quick Willie hooked his thumbs over the waistband of her bikini panties. Slowly he began pulling them down. He was bent over slightly, a leering, slobbering grin on his stupid face.

Tanya’s green eyes narrowed slightly. She let the raised knee drop, and even raised her fanny a little to help him pull the panties down.

His face was directly over her belly now and moving down as he inched the panties along. The top of the triangular, chestnut-velvet thatch was revealed. Willie kept slowly pulling down the panties.

With Tanya’s arms raised high, her breasts looked like soft overturned milk bowls topped with copper coins the size of half dollars. Remembering the taste of those breasts I could understand Willie’s eagerness. It made me want to kill him more.

When half of the chestnut thatch was showing, Quick Willie saw the end of a small hollow cylinder. It seemed to be rising as he pulled down on the bikini panties.

Willie frowned with his mouth open. “Now what da hell is dis?” he said in his nasal grunt.

He pulled down the bikinis farther and farther as more of the cylinder was revealed. His forehead was wrinkled in a frown of curiosity. When he got the panties down over Tanya’s thighs, the barrel of the small gun snapped straight up. There was a short, loud BANG, and the end of the barrel started sending out tiny wisps of smoke.

Quick Willie stiffened straight up. His creased, swollen-knuckled hands tried to reach toward his forehead but only got as far as his chest. He twisted sideways, the frown still on his face. Now he was facing my porthole. The frown left his face and was replaced with a look of utter disbelief. There was a tiny dime-size hole, just now beginning to bleed, in the middle of his forehead.

He saw me and his mouth dropped open wide. It was the last thing he ever saw. With his arms straight out he stumbled toward the porthole. His hands hit it first, but they had no strength. I flinched slightly as his face smashed against the porthole. For a split second it was pressed against the glass, eyes wide and staring, streams of blood flowing down both sides of the mangled nose. His forehead pressed against the porthole, smearing blood all over it. He was so close I could see the tiny red arteries in the whites of his eyes, a cobweb of maps now being filmed over with death.

Quick Willie fell back away from the porthole and crumbled to the deck like dried clay that had been hit with a hammer. Then all I could see was the smeared blood on the glass.

Tanya had also seen me.

Clutching the fingers of my left hand against my wound, I got to my hands and knees and worked my way along the smooth catwalk toward the main hatch. Going down the ladder was not difficult. I just grabbed the handrails and let my feet fall down in front of me. It was a five-foot slide. But I crumbled on the deck below like a pile of laundry. There was no strength in my legs: they couldn’t seem to hold me up.

I shuffled down the companionway in a sitting position making my agonizing way to the door of the main cabin. It was open.

“Nick?” Tanya called as I got in. “Nick, is it really you?”

Once inside the cabin, I shuffled to the foot of the bunk and pulled myself up enough to look at her face. I smiled at her.

Her lower lip sucked in between her teeth. Tears flooded her eyes. “I... gave it away, didn’t I? It was my fault they found our cover. If you’d had somebody more experienced, the mission would have been successful. How, Nick? Where did I slip?”

I pushed myself up until I was sitting on the edge of the bunk at her feet.

“Nick!” she cried. “You’re bleeding! They...”

“Hush,” I said in a hoarse voice. Wilhelmina was still in my right hand. I sniffled once and rubbed my right forearm across my nose. “Just... want to rest for awhile.” The lightheaded feeling was returning.

“Darling,” Tanya said, “if you can get my hands untied, I’ll be able to stop that bleeding. We have to stop it. Your whole side is covered with blood, even your left pants leg.”

My chin dropped to my chest. She was right. If she could get something around my waist maybe the dizziness would leave.

“Come on, darling,” she coaxed. “Try to work your way up to my wrists.”

I leaned to the side and felt my face fall against the smoothness of her belly. Then pushing with my hands I moved my head up the hollow of her rib cage, then over the soft mounds of her breasts. My lips were touching her throat. Then I slid my head over the top of her shoulder and felt the blanket on the bunk. The side of my neck was resting against her arm.

She moved her head and turned so our faces were less than an inch apart. Smiling at me she said, “A girl could get herself all worked up over that kind of maneuver.”

The dizziness returned and I had to rest. I felt her lips softly against my cheek, moving down, searching. Lifting my head slightly, I let my lips touch hers.

It was not a kiss of passion or of lust. She was telling me I could do it. The touching of our lips was soft, gentle, and filled with an emotion that went beyond the physical.

Groping with my hands, I heard a clanging as Wilhelmina fell to the deck. Then my hands were on her left arm. Slowly I slid them out, reaching above my own head, until I could feel the knot at her wrists. It seemed to take forever to get the damned thing untied.

But I knew I had done it when I felt her arms circle my neck. She pulled my face against the wishbone just below her throat and held me. At that moment I felt I could stay there forever.

“Darling,” she whispered. “Listen to me. I’m going to leave you for a little bit. Somewhere on this boat there has to be a first-aid kit. I’ll be back as soon as I find it. You just rest.”

The dizziness returned, and I was only aware of the coldness she had left in her absence. Besides the bunk, the cabin had a rolltop desk, a table with four chairs, a sliding closet door, and an overhead lamp that kept swaying back and forth slightly. A photo was on the wall opposite the bunk. It showed Konya, younger and with hair. This must have been his yacht, and the landing strip had to be on his land.

My eyes closed and I thought of Tai Sheng taking off in the Lear jet to deliver the shipment of heroin. He wouldn’t leave without the list. Would he? Suppose he had all the help he needed on his own personal list, the one showing all the Chinese agents in the Chinatowns of America. Then he wouldn’t need Nicoli’s list, or me. But I wanted him to come to me. Everyone was dead but him. He had to need that list.

I was being moved around but my eyes remained closed. I felt as though a cocoon was being pressed all around my waist. It hurt like hell, but after the sixth or seventh push I started getting used to it. A blanket passed behind my eyes and I left again. Then I felt my shoulder being shaken.

“Nick? Darling?” Tanya was saying. “The bleeding has stopped. I gave you a shot. Here, take these two pills.”

My waist was pulled tight with bandaging. When my eyes opened I blinked at the harsh light overhead. Tanya’s puffed, discolored eyes were smiling at me.

“How long have I been out?” I asked. I thought I heard a sound like a London police whistle. It wasn’t loud; in fact I could barely hear it. For some reason a name kept popping up in my mind. The Winged Tiger.

“No more than five minutes. Now take these pills.”

I popped them in my mouth and drank the glass of water she handed me. The dizziness and lightheaded feeling had left me. I was alert, but in pain. That sound was bothersome — a high, screaming sound far away.

“Nick?” Tanya asked. “What is it?”

Winking at her, I said, “Sweetie, get it out of your head that you blew this mission. Maybe we both goofed a little along the way, but our covers were blown by something unforeseen. Okay?”

She kissed my forehead. “Okay. But what was bothering you? You looked like you were reaching for something and couldn’t find it.”

“I still can’t find it. Sheng killed Nicoli. But before he did he said he had the list of the Winged Tiger, then he laughed out loud. I saw something that should have made that whole scene important to me. Maybe that stuff you gave me fouled up my thinking process.”

“It’s supposed to make you clearheaded,” Tanya protested.

As soon as I pushed myself to my feet a wave of nausea washed over me. I fell back against the bunk but remained on my feet. The feeling passed.

Then I snapped my fingers. “Of course! That’s it!”

Tanya stood in front of me searching my eyes. “What is it?” she asked.

“There is a list of Sheng’s contacts in the States. I knew it existed but I didn’t know where. Sure. He told me himself. The Winged Tiger. Now I know where it is.”

“Nick, listen!” Her head was cocked to one side. She had been getting dressed. Now she sat on the bunk, skirt hiked high, pulling on her stockings. We both heard a high, screaming sound.

“It’s Sheng,” I said. “He’s got the Lear jet running. Maybe I can stop him.”

She called to me when I reached the door. “Nick? Wait for me.”

“No, you stay here.”

“Oh, pooh!” Her lower lip stuck out, but by that time I had Wilhelmina in my hand and was out the door.

I took the ladder steps two at a time. The crisp night air hit my bare torso as soon as I reached the main deck. The blood at my feet was a reminder of how I’d gotten there.

It was too dark to make out the Volkswagen bus. I went over the side to a wooden finger of the dock. The scream of the jet was louder now. But why hadn’t he taken off? Why was he just sitting there letting the engines run?

As soon as I reached the asphalt I knew something was wrong. Two things happened at once. At that distance I could easily make out the Volkswagen bus against the glimmering harbor. There was a smaller, darker shadow behind it. The black Mercedes. Then I heard the smooth, purring chuckle of Tai Sheng behind me.

“Drop it, Carter,” he said in his oily voice. There was a kind of amusement in it. He had caught me in a stupid trap.

Wilhelmina thudded to the asphalt when I let her go.

“I thought the sound of the Lear jet would pull you off the boat. No, there is no one at the controls. It is still tied down and chocked, waiting for me.”

“Don’t let me keep you.”

“Oh, you won’t. I intend to go right after I kill you. But you see, Carter, you have something that belongs to me. Nicoli’s list. You could have saved us both a great deal of trouble if you had handed it over to me outside the hotel. I had a special small camera that I was going to use to photograph it, then I would have turned the list over to Nicoli.

“Don’t turn around, Carter. Do not even think of it. Is the list on you?”

“No.”

He sighed. “I can see you’re going to be difficult. I was hoping to just shoot you, then take the list. Carter, I am pressed for time. There are people waiting at the next meeting point for the heroin. And I am thirty minutes behind schedule. Did you hide it somewhere on the boat?”

My hands were hanging at my sides. “Maybe. What are you going to do with it?”

The oily smoothness of his voice was showing impatience. “Really, Carter, this is all academic. You’re going to be dead when I leave here anyway.”

“Let’s say I want to go down filled with knowledge. Since I’m dying for the list, don’t you think I have a right to know what it will be used for?”

“You have no rights. This is stupid, I don’t...” He paused for a few seconds. Then he said, “Turn around, Carter.”

I slowly turned so that I faced him. He must have been hiding under the bow. There was no doubt that he had a gun and that it was aimed at me. But I couldn’t see the expression on his face. It was merely a featureless shadow.

“You’re trying to buy time, Carter,” he said. “Why?”

If I couldn’t see his face, he couldn’t see mine. Keeping my arms close to my sides, I shrugged slightly. Hugo, my thin stiletto, fell to my hand.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Sheng.”

“Willie!” he shouted. “Willie, are you on board?”

We both listened to the lapping of water against the yacht and the faraway, high-pitched scream of the Lear jet.

“Aren’t you afraid you’ll run out of fuel running that jet all this time?” I asked.

“Don’t play games with me, Carter. Willie! Answer me!”

“He isn’t going to answer you, Sheng. He’s through answering anyone.”

“All right, you killed him. You saw what he did to the girl and you hit him. So much for Willie. Now where is that list?”

“If you kill me, you’ll never find it. And I’m not going to turn it over until I know what you’re using it for.” Out of the corner of my eye I saw Tanya crawling inch by inch along the forward deck of the yacht. When she reached the bow she would be directly over Sheng. I wondered what had kept her.

“All right,” Sheng said with another sigh of impatience. “Several copies will be made, and one copy will be sent to each branch headquarter station in America. Every name on that list will be followed and watched. Information about personal lives will be gathered and stored. Any method available will be used: wiretapping, spot checks on places visited, home searches while they’re away. You might say we will be acting a great deal like your Federal Government.”

“And what will be the purpose of all this?” I asked. Tanya had almost reached the forward edge of the bow. She was inching very slowly and carefully. She knew what Sheng could do, probably much better than I did.

“Information, Carter. Some of it will be used against those who decide a new power should not take over. Your agency should be delighted. We will make evidence available so that many underworld arrests can be made. Those who will go along with us will be amply rewarded. But first we will use the information to find a man with the right combination of stupidity, greed, and ambition. Another Rozano Nicoli will be hard to locate. He was truly perfect, and things would have gone well if you hadn’t meddled.”

Tanya was at the bow edge now. She was slowly getting herself turned sideways, fingers over the edge. I knew what kind of an attack she was going to launch — hands to the side, drop and push, lash out with both feet against Sheng’s head. She was almost ready. All I had to do was buy another minute or two.

“What about the list of the Winged Tiger?” I asked. “What are you going to use that for?”

His shoulders rose and fell in an impatient gesture. “Carter, you are beginning to bore me with these incessant questions. No more talk. Where is the list?”

“That is a little stupid, isn’t it, Sheng? I know what you have in mind. As soon as I tell you where it is, my life is worthless.”

“Is that what you are trying to buy? More time to five?”

“Maybe.”

He raised the gun. “Turn your pockets inside out.”

I did so, keeping Hugo cupped inside my palm. When my two front pants pockets were out and down I got a more comfortable grip on the stiletto. Tanya was ready to make her jump now. It had to be soon, the first was in my back pocket, and I knew what Sheng would ask next.

“All right,” he said. “Now turn around and pull your back pockets inside out. You didn’t have that much time to hide the thing. It should be easy to find if you don’t have it on you.”

I stood still without moving.

“I will shoot your kneecaps first, then both elbows, then the shoulders. Do as I say.” He took a step forward and leaned over a little, looking at me as though he had just seen me for the first time. “Wait a minute,” he whispered. “You’re not buying time for yourself. There’s bandaging around your waist. How did... Who...”

That’s when Tanya jumped. Her legs came out and down followed by the rest of her. The flight was so short I almost missed it in the darkness. She was like a missile, hitting with feet first, arms and hands a trailing mist above her.

But Sheng was not entirely unprepared. As soon as he saw my bandage, he knew that Tanya had not been killed, that she was alive and listening to our conversation. At that moment he had taken a step backward, which threw off her timing; he was raising the gun toward her as he turned away from me.

That was when I started moving. Hugo was in my hand now, at waist level. Sheng was six or seven steps away from me. I lowered my head and started after him, Hugo in front of me.

Tanya’s timing had been thrown, but not completely. Her right heel caught Sheng on the side of the neck, snapping his head to the side. He didn’t quite get the gun aimed at her. But then the rest of her plowed into him.

For an instant she was tangled around his head and shoulders. He hadn’t dropped the gun yet, but it waved around frantically while he tried to get her off.

I was almost on him. The entire scene seemed to take on a slow-motion pace, although I knew only split seconds were passing. I doubted if two seconds had passed from the time Tanya made her leap until now, yet it all seemed as if it were taking me forever getting to him.

He was going down with Tanya still all over him. Now he was four steps away, then three. When his back hit the asphalt he forced himself over, legs going high toward his head. His left knee hit Tanya on the side of the head which was enough to send her up and behind him. She struck the asphalt and started rolling.

Sheng went completely over on his hands and knees. He got his right foot under him ready to stand, and raised the gun toward me.

But by that time I had reached him. I had switched Hugo to my right hand and now had it pushed ahead of me. With my left I knocked his gun arm aside and stabbed down, putting all my weight behind it.

He saw it coming and, grabbing for my wrist, fell to his right. The point of the stiletto had been aimed at his throat. By leaning away he caught it in the shoulder.

I could feel it going in. The point passed through the cloth of his coat easily, paused for a microsecond when it began to pierce the skin, then slid in with all my weight behind it. Sheng’s shoulder went back as he twisted to the side.

He let out a howl of pain and grabbed my wrist. Now he was trying to bring the gun back around. I tried to pull the stiletto back out to get another plunge at him, but he held my wrist tight.

We were close to each other. I could see the pain in his eyes, the lock of straight black hair over his forehead, the loosened tie, blood starting to spurt from the wound soaking the beautifully tailored jacket.

With his free hand he struck me in the wounded side.

I let out a grunt as pain washed completely over me. It was like liquid poured from a bucket. Straight to the bone marrow it went, hurting everything along the way.

There were several things I could still see. I was going down, doubled to my left. Sheng was now swinging the gun around toward my head. Somehow the stiletto had been pulled from his shoulder. It was still in my hand. The pain dulled my brain, slowed my reflexes to elephantlike movements.

Sheng was on his feet. Tanya lay apart from us, unmoving. I was sitting with my hand pressed against my bleeding side. Then I got both feet under me as I saw his gun swing at my face. Forgetting the pain, I put both arms in front of me and dove.

It was a flying tackle hitting him just above the knees, the kind that make pro quarterbacks climb stairs very slowly and limp for the first hour after rising. When I was sure my shoulders had struck him, I gathered his calves, ankles, and feet into my chest and kept driving.

He couldn’t step anywhere. As he fell back his arms went up and back to try to cushion his fall. But he hit hard anyway. Then he started pulling his legs. It wasn’t until I started crawling over him toward his face that I realized he had lost the gun in his fall. I just caught a glimpse of it making one last bounce on the wooden dock, then splashing into the harbor.

My right hand, with the stiletto in it, went high. But he grabbed it before I could bring it down into his stomach. We stayed like that, both straining. I had all my strength behind Hugo, pressing it down at him. All his strength was against my wrist, trying to keep the point of the stiletto away.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Tanya begin to stir. The second it took to look at her was a mistake. Sheng raised a knee hard into my back. I cried out and doubled backward. That’s when he slapped the stiletto out of my hand. Too late, I grabbed toward it and watched it go skittering along the asphalt.

With his shoulder bleeding his one hand seemed useless. The other went for my throat with a strength I hadn’t thought he possessed. We rolled over and over. I was trying to reach for his eyes. He tried to knee me in the groin but I managed to twist away.

Then we were on the slick wood, close to the water’s edge, both grunting and panting. Neither of us spoke now. We were something less than human, as basic as time itself.

My hand was on his cheek, still going for the eyes. I realized then that he was patting my back pocket. My fist went back and smashed him against the nose. Again I struck him, and each time he let out a grunt of pain.

Blood was pouring from his nose. I raised up and smashed his mouth this time. Then I reached behind me and tried to slap his hand away from my pocket. It went away all right. It struck hard into my open wound.

Again a wave of nausea washed over me. All strength left my arms. Vaguely I felt his hand go in the pocket and pull out the list.

I had to stop him. If he got away, everything he had planned would work. The assignment would have been a failure. Gritting my teeth, I forced strength back into my body.

He was trying to push away from me. I got hold of a coat sleeve, then a pants leg. The leg jerked free, then turned back toward me. It went back and swiftly came forward again. The toe of Sheng’s shoe connected with the bleeding bandage on my side.

Blackness swept in like a tide of ink. I rolled over twice, thinking he was going to keep trying. All the things you are supposed to do to keep from going out passed through my mind. I fought it with everything in me. Once that plane took off with Sheng inside, he would be lost forever.

Sucking in and blowing out, I managed to get rid of enough blackness to open my eyes. Sheng was five feet from me, one arm hanging useless at his side, blood dripping from his fingers.

He had stopped at the stiletto. Pausing slightly, he looked down at it, then at me. The list was in his good hand, working back and forth between his fingers.

Escape must have been more important, because he left the stiletto where it was and staggered toward the Mercedes. His footsteps echoed on the asphalt to the background sound of the screaming Lear jet.

By the time I was sitting, Tanya had gotten to her hands and knees. Wilhelmina was too far away. The driver’s door of the Mercedes opened.

When I got to my knees, Tanya was standing and coming to me. The Mercedes’s door slammed shut. It was a solid CLUNK sound like the closing of a safe. Immediately there was a whir of starter motor, then the purr of the big V8. Tires chirped on the asphalt as Sheng made a quick U and faded from sight.

I got to my feet and weaved back and forth.

“Oh, Nick!” Tanya cried when she reached me. “It’s bleeding again. That bandage is soaked through.”

I pushed away from her and scooped up the stiletto, then staggered on to Wilhelmina. As I picked up the gun I stuck Hugo back in his sheath. Bare-chested, bandage soaked with blood, holster under the armpit, sheath on the arm. It wasn’t enough.

“Nick, what are you doing?” Tanya asked.

“Got to stop him.”

“But you’re bleeding. Let me stop it, then we can...”

“No!” I took a deep breath.

Mind over matter. The mystical, unknown powers of the East. Yoga. Closing my eyes, I called on everything within me. Just as yoga had helped me relax countless times, I now called on it for strength. Everything I had ever been taught was now summoned. I wanted my mind cleared of all pain. There was only one thing to concentrate on: stopping Sheng and that Lear jet. When I opened my eyes again, it was done — or done enough to get me moving.

“I’m coming with you.” Tanya fell in step.

“No.” I had started for the Volkswagen bus. And I was moving swiftly. Over my shoulder I said, “That cabin cruiser must have some kind of ship-to-shore radio. Find it and call Hawk. Tell him where we are.”

It was a fool’s kind of calmness which overtook me, an insane quiet which had nothing to do with reality. I knew it. Yet the only thought running through my mind was, “The sign of the Winged Tiger... the sign of the Winged Tiger.” Sheng had a list our Government needed. I had to get it. And it was not the list he had taken from me — that one we didn’t care about — it was the one he had hidden: the sign of the Winged Tiger.

Tanya disappeared through the hatch as I got the bus started and moved in a U. Over the mechanical clacking of the air-cooled, four-cylinder engine, I heard the scream of the Lear jet rise in pitch and volume.

I left the lights off as I drove along the asphalt. A stripped Luger, a stiletto, a gas bomb, and an agent with a lot of lost blood were no match for a Lear jet. But I had an idea I thought might work.

The flashing red-and-green running lights were far ahead of me now. I could see them clearly. The jet was rolling. Coming from the opposite end of the grassy field.

The asphalt road veered to the left at nine o’clock. The rolling jet was at twelve. I cut the wheel of the bus and left the road for the bouncing ankle-high grass, at an angle of about two o’clock.

Flames from the jets extended far behind the plane, looking like Fourth of July fireworks in the night. It was really moving now. I pushed the bus to its limit in third gear, then shifted to fourth.

From the angle I was driving, the jet was coming at ten o’clock while I was heading at twelve. The ground was much smoother than I thought it would be. My speedometer was hovering between fifty and sixty. The scream of the jet engines was now a thunderous roar. The running lights bounced as the plane rolled faster and faster.

It would take to the air soon. Blades of grass became a blur of darkness. My eyes never left the rolling plane. The distance between us was quickly gobbled up as the two rolling masses of metal headed on a collision course.

Vaguely I wondered if he had seen me. It didn’t matter. Both of us had passed the point of no return now. There was nothing he could do with that plane but ride. He hadn’t made enough speed to lift off, he couldn’t brake it to a halt, and he couldn’t turn without flipping. It was the same with me.

Reaching down behind the seat, I felt around the cold metal objects until I found the heavy mallet. I pulled it up and put it in my lap.

The plane was getting close now, the roar of the engines so loud they deafened, wheels a spinning mass of black, cockpit lit just enough so I could see him. His hair was still mussed slightly. The oxygen mask was loose, dangling to his left. He was an expert pilot, had been awarded Red China’s highest medal.

There might not be enough time. I had to hurry. The distance was being eaten up too fast. I picked up the mallet and let the weight of it fall to the floorboard. The bus slowed slightly as I moved my foot from the gas pedal and placed the mallet on it. For an instant I had a feeling of utter smallness, something like what the man on a day sailer must feel as he is passed by an ocean finer.

My hand was on the doorlatch. The bus was now rolling at a steady fifty. But the jet had picked up a lot of speed. It took a great deal of effort to get the door open against the rushing wind. And I could hear the low roar of both engines at full throttle. I turned the wheel to the left slightly. Now the bus was heading directly for the jet. I pushed the door all the way open and jumped.

At first there was the sensation of flight, the timeless twilight area when you are not touching anything on this earth. Then, looking down, the ground was moving much too fast. I was going to get hurt.

I had thought about hitting the ground running. That was why my foot struck first. But the force of speed sent my head down and my other leg up toward my back. I no longer had control of where I was going. All I could do was relax my body.

My head hit, then my back, then I was in the air again. This time I came down on my shoulder and kept bouncing and rolling while I gritted my teeth against the pain.

Almost as quickly as I’d started, I stopped. Couldn’t catch my breath, wind knocked out of me, blind for an instant. There was a lot of orange light and heat.

I felt it rather than saw it because I had only been able to catch glimpses of what had happened as I bounced and rolled. Maybe that was what helped me relax, concentrating on what was happening to the plane.

Sheng had seen the bus at the last minute. He had hit the port brake, trying to turn slightly out of the way. The Lear jet tipped up on its right wheel, dipping the right wing low. It was that wingtip the bus struck. With a screeching grind of breaking metal the wing bent and broke. By that time the nose of the jet was aimed toward the ground behind the bus and the tail was coming up.

With engines still roaring, the plane did one cartwheel, broken right wing to nose to left wing to tail. At that point Sheng cut the power.

For an instant the plane stood poised on its tail, simply flowing down the grassy strip with the tail less than a foot off the ground, blowing grass to the sides like the bow of a ship parting water.

When it came down it was upside down. The cockpit area slammed hard as the whole plane started spinning and twirling, making that screeching metal grinding sound.

And then it blew.

The wing tanks blew toward the fuselage, which came apart like a dropped puzzle. Orange and red balls of flame boiled up with roaring explosions. The sky was brightened as flames belched straight up and out in all directions.

Pieces landed less than twenty feet away from me. A wing section went high and landed close to where I had jumped. The entire tail section was blasted free from the fuselage. It went up like a well-kicked football and ripped apart far to my left.

The orange flaming light showed the Volkswagen bus rolling. It didn’t explode. After the wing struck, it reared on its back wheels like a wild stallion, then pitched forward, flipped to its side, and rolled four times before it came to a halt upside down.

The air was filled with the smells of melting aluminum and magnesium, and burning rubber and plastic. There was no odor of Sheng’s burning flesh; it was too weak beside the other flaming elements. As the cockpit melted and flowed, scarring the grass, I saw what might have been his body, or what might have been a charred, crooked log, or a shriveled black cow. A crusty stub still had hold of the wheel. Now and then flames licked at it, but not often, because it was already burned through.

Orange light also revealed Tanya running across the grass toward me. The calmness was still there. I knew what I had to do now. She came with her skirt riding high, fine legs pumping that soft flesh along. Something dangled from her shoulder by a strap.

I had forgotten what it felt like not to hurt. Besides the wounded side, which was the deepest of pains, I was a mass of bruises. By some lucky twist of fate no bones had been broken, at least none that I could tell. There was pain low on my chest when I took a breath, but it was no worse or better than any of the others.

Tanya reached me all out of breath. I had managed to push myself to my feet. Standing there with the whole world lit by wavy orange and red flames, I waited for Tanya to get to me.

For a long time we stood in the orange light, just holding each other. Her fragile body shook with sobs. For some reason I was smiling.

Then she pushed away from me and looked at my face. “D-did we lose?” she asked. “I know he’s dead... but the assignment... did we... fail?”

I kissed her forehead. “We’ll see. I’ve got a hunch. If I’m right, we were successful.”

Then she grabbed me again, and the pain almost made me pass out. “Oh, Nick,” she cried. “When I saw that bus rolling and rolling and I thought you were inside...”

“Shh. It’s all right. What have you got in the little case?”

“First-aid kit. I called Mr. Hawk. He’s on the way. Nick? Where are you going?”

“I was hobbling toward the overturned bus.” She came trotting beside me. “I want to have a look at the Winged Tiger,” I said.

The plane was still burning but the flames had diminished quite a bit. I felt the heat as I circled it to get to the bus. Metal was flowing from it like silver molten lava, oozing from cracks and open cavities.

When I reached the bus I got the big side door open. The inside smelled strongly of raw gas. Tanya waited outside while I rummaged through the scattered tools. The box had been kicked around quite a bit and a couple of wrenches had smashed through windows. Using the waving flames for light, I found two screwdrivers, a Phillips and a straight slot. I wasn’t sure what kind of screw heads I’d be removing.

As I walked away from the bus, Tanya walked dutifully and silently beside me. She didn’t ask questions; she knew if she remained silent and watched, all the answers would be there. As we walked toward where I had seen the tail section land, I put my arm around her shoulders. She pressed against me, lightly brushing me a little with each step.

There was a loud explosion behind us that sent another cloud of flame boiling up.

Tanya looked back over her shoulder. “What do you think that was?”

“Oxygen bottles probably. There it is, over to the right.”

The tail section of the Lear jet had broken again and was resting in grass about a foot high. I passed over the pieces ripped from the main and stopped when I found the main piece.

“The Winged Tiger,” I said.

Kneeling with Tanya beside me, I wiped grass stains and dirt and black soot from the smooth surface. There was the painted face and body of a winged tiger. The flush screwheads held a panel about eight inches square. I tossed the straight-slot screwdriver aside and used the Phillips. In less than five minutes I had the panel free and hanging by its small chain.

“What’s in there?” Tanya asked as I felt around inside the cavity.

“This.” It was a small packet of shiny aluminum foil about four inches by two. Very carefully I began unwrapping the foil. There were several sheets of folded paper inside clipped together.

Tanya was looking over my arm. “Nick,” she said. “That’s it, isn’t it?”

I nodded handing her the clipped papers. “The list of the Winged Tiger. All of Sheng’s Communist contacts in America.” The words came automatically because I had discovered another piece of paper wrapped in the foil.

“What are you grinning about?” Tanya asked.

“We have a bonus, something I didn’t expect. This list contains the names and locations of every contact from Palermo to Saigon where the heroin moves.” I handed it to her, then kissed the tip of her nose. “Look it over, love. Names, places, and dates of previous deliveries.”

“Nick, then...”

My grin turned to a chuckle that hurt. “Yes, Tanya, you might say that our mission was successful.”