The Vulcan Disaster

Chapter Fourteen

I called Basil Morse.

“Basil? Nick Carter. I...”

“Oh, Carter. I was wondering when the devil I’d be hearing from you.”

“Basil,” I said. “I’m at Meyer’s old place. I think you’d better get down here and have a look around.”

“Meyer’s...?” His voice was annoyed, nasal, intolerant “Where the devil is that?”

“68–72 Nathan Road, Basil. You’d better hurry. There’s been a murder here, and this one is going to kick up a bit of a stink in this tight little undercover community of yours here.”

“Murder? Look here, Carter, if you’ve killed...”

“Not me, it’s... Look, Basil. The cops are not going to be too far behind me, I just got here. You’ll want to give things a look-see before they arrive. The cops are going to impound this guy’s file cabinet as soon as they find this,” I said. “You’ll want to go through it. Look Basil...”

“Calm down, Carter. One can’t make heads or tails of things with you...”

“Basil, I saw who did it. It’s the same people who did in Meyer. And they did it the same way, with the same trademark. I want to put a description of both of them in every diplomatic bag we have. These guys are going to show up later, you can bet on that.”

“Yes, but...”

“Take my word for it. You want to look in those files. I’ll show you how. You start at. A. That’s up in the top drawer. Then you try B...”

“Oh, confound. 68–72, you said? Nathan Road?”

“Yes, and make it snappy. I haven’t any idea whether or not these bozos tipped off the cops beforehand. Not that I have any idea why they would, but I’m taking no chances. Get on the stick.”

“All right,” the stuffy voice said. “Uh... twenty minutes.”

“Make it fifteen.”

“All right.”

“Hey. Don’t hang up.”

“Oh?”

“You must have a man over in Victoria. Preferably in Wanchai, or as near to there as possible.”

“Yes, I...”

“Get hold of him immediately. Immediately. Get that? Send him around to this address.” I gave him the address Will had given me. “And in a hurry, and armed to the teeth. A couple of my friends are there, and they’ve been ambushed. I’m not quite sure by whom. I just got a call from them. We may be too late. But just in case there’s a chance, any chance at all...”

“Right. I’ll get right on it.”

“You do that.” I hung up.

Then I sat back down again and tried not to look down at Fred. He’d died with that last rush of blood from the deep slash on his neck, much as Meyer had. So many people had died, in so short a time. And for what? An arms shipment that somebody had beat them to?

I tried, too, not to think of Will. I knew just what had happened. He’d been ready for them — as ready as anyone ever gets — and, gutsy old devil that he was, he’d almost been looking forward to having the first of them burst through that door. Then the pain in his head had hit him, right when he needed it least, right when...

I shuddered. And Tatiana? Would she survive him for long? I doubted it. Not after they’d sicked those kung fu types on us back in Temple Street. No; they wouldn’t let her live, to tell what little she knew.

I shook my head, trying to clear it. I wanted a hundred percent lucidity right now, so that I could take it all in and catalogue it and crossfile it and index it so thoroughly that I’d never have the chance to forget it. I wanted it all clear as crystal in my mind, for the future.

Some day, somewhere, I was going to bring it all together. And I was going to make use of it. And when I did, the axe was going to fall on somebody. Hard.

I promised myself that much. For all of them.

I was still thinking all these things when Basil Morse turned up, a few minutes late again, but, I noticed, in no particular hurry this time. I didn’t get mad; I hadn’t expected him even to give me this much in the way of speed and despatch. I filed it away.

He walked in, looked down, and said, “Good lord.” He looked away quickly; I wasn’t sure whether or not he’d recognized the man on the floor. I filed that away too. “You... you’ve left no prints of your own?” he said.

“No,” I said. I didn’t know whether I was lying or not. I didn’t give a damn. I didn’t care whether or not somebody took out a billboard saying Nick Carter was in the room that day. I was feeling old and tired and stove-in, and I’d about had it with Hong Kong for now. “That’s the file cabinet over there,” I said. “I’ve been through it, but I was looking for my stuff. You know, riding my own hobbyhorse. There may be things in there that would concern you that wouldn’t me.” He made no move to examine it. He was staring at the wall, biting his lip. “Basil,” I said. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Oh, I... was thinking. You... well, nothing that would concern you...”

I was wondering what he could find to think about right now that wouldn’t concern me. “Basil,” I said. “Did you send a man out to that address I gave you?”

“Addr...? Oh, yes. Yes. Griffin. He said he’d drop by on his way to...”

“Drop by? Drop by? Goddamit, Basil, you...”

“Well, he was down in Aberdeen, and it’d take him a bit to get up to Victoria, but I asked him if he’d...”

“Asked? Didn’t you have anyone closer?”

“Well, yes; Kennedy. But he was busy with some work for the Chief of Operations, and I couldn’t very well...”

“Look,” I said. I stood up all the way, pushing off from the wall I’d been leaning on. My ribs either didn’t hurt anymore or I couldn’t feel any pain of any kind. There was a tightness in the back of my throat. It showed when I said, “Goddamit, Basil, I said hurry. That was a matter of life and death, and there wasn’t any...”

“Carter, there’s such a thing as procedure. You door-to-door salesman types never seem to recognize that, but those of us who have to stay behind and do the work...”

I sat down and glared at him. My own temples were ready to burst.

“That fool Fredericks. God, what an ugly thing to... Oh, the damned idiot. What a stupid thing to do, coming blundering in here like that. Well, that’s the British for you. How they got the reputation they have in the intelligence game I’ll never know. I wonder what the devil he thought he was going to find...”

I stood up. My palms were sweaty; my head was swimming. “Well, buster, you can find out for yourself. I...”

“What? What’s that?”

“You can have the whole stinking case. You can have everything that happens in Hong Kong. I drop it all in your lap. I’m heading back to Washington. I...”

“Back to...? What the devil are you talking about? You’re not going anywhere. You’re on detail to me, Carter. You’d better not forget that. You’ll leave when I say you...”

I hit him.

It must have been the sucker punch to end all sucker punches. The minute I threw it, I knew it’d connect. It just felt right. I knew, the minute I swung, that it’d contact that aristocratic chin of Basil Morse’s right at the maximum point of power, with plenty of English on it and plenty of meat and bones behind it. I also knew that the minute it clicked, and hit him right on the button like that, it would lay him out to sleep. And it did. Just the way I’d figured it. On the way down he knocked over a lamp and a chair. Nighty-night, Basil.

I stood there for a moment, rubbing my hand. It wasn’t enough. I wanted to kill him. I wanted to break bones. And then I wanted to throw him out the window, and set the room on fire, and then go out the front door and shoot the first three people I ran into.

The miserable sonofabitch. There’d been maybe the half of a ghost of an outside chance that somebody might have arrived in time to help Will and Tatiana. That, however, had been before Basil Morse had rearranged the priorities for the sake of internal protocol. Can’t disturb the proper order of things. Can’t inconvenience the Chief of Operations. Can’t...

Will. Tatiana.

Fred. Christ, Fred. It hadn’t even been his affair. He’d just smelled a fish, given the little I’d told him, and he’d done some checking. I’d brought up Tatiana. She’d been seen with Meyer. He’d checked and found out Meyer hadn’t come back to town, although he’d been expected. He’d looked up his office address and broken in, same as I had earlier...

I sat down. And I took out Wilhelmina and jacked a round into her chamber. My hands were steady as I looked down at j them.

I’d taken a hell of a licking here in the Far East this trip — first in Saigon, now in Hong Kong.

I was tired of that.

I wanted some answers, and I wasn’t going to get them by continuing to play this stupid game I’d wound up in. I had to get back to the capital, and find out what the hell had happened to David Hawk, and talk to a bunch of people who could help me put the pieces of this confusing jigsaw puzzle I back together. And when I did...

When I did, I was going to break up a few ball games. I was going to put all of these bloodthirsty bastards out of business. I promised myself that. I didn’t know how, but I did know what I was going to do. I felt achey, and decrepit, and sweaty, and thoroughly miserable. But now that I’d made up my mind about everything I felt a little better.

In the meantime I had one more thing to do before I’d be able to leave town with a clear conscience.

I looked down at my watch. Twelve o’clock. Will had said to call him at noon.

I dialed that number he’d given me, with the Hong Kong Island prefix.

Somebody answered after three rings. “Yes?”

“This is Nick Carter.” I let the name sit there in the air.

“Carter?” said the voice. “Yes, I think I know about you. What can I do for you, Mr. Carter?” The voice had a familiar ring, somehow.

“Nothing. Where are my friends?”

“You know already where your friends are.”

“Yeah. I guess I do.” My throat was tight again. “On the other hand, you didn’t get the shipment, did you?”

“Shipment?”

“The arms shipment. Let’s not play games. It’s out to sea by now, isn’t it?”

“Ah... perhaps. Perhaps not. Your... ah... friends were kind enough to tell us...”

“He couldn’t talk. He couldn’t even think by the time you came in that door. And she didn’t know. You’re as much in the dark as I am and you won’t admit it.” I took a deep breath. “All I want to know is if they died quickly.”

“Quickly? Why, yes, I suppose. I...”

“Good.” There was a lump in my throat I chose to ignore. “That means when I get to you I’ll kill you quickly. Humanely. You’ll hardly know it. And I’ll get to you, sooner or later. You can count on that.”

“You do not know who I am.”

“Yes I do. I just don’t know who you work for, or what your name is, or what your game is. And I won’t be ready to kill you until I have all the information needed to sink your ship and bust up your whole operation. But then, old buddy, look out.”

“I am listening. I am waiting.”

“Yeah? Well, don’t stand on one leg. I’m in no hurry. But I’m going to put you out of business. Just you watch.”

“Mr. Carter, you...”

“See you later,” I said.

I hung up after a moment. And then I looked at the wall for a few minutes, counting up all the debts I’d have to pay for this little trip. And then I looked down at Fred and I got to feeling sick and mad again. And I promptly cured the sick part by looking down at Basil Morse. I stayed mad.

I let out a deep breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. “Basil, you sonofabitch,” I said. “I’m going to put a crimp in that old school tie of yours. I’m going to set you up. I’m going to fix things so that you have occasion to remember this day and wonder just what it was that happened to you, and what you could have done to deserve it.”

I bent down over his outstretched body. And I picked up one of his hands and swung it over, limp and lifeless, and dipped it in Fred’s blood, palm down. And then I smeared it, all red and sticky, all over the side of his head. What was left I smeared into the rug in front of Basil’s peaceful face. And then I stood up.

They wouldn’t suspect him... really. Not after a good solid British-type investigation had been made. Nobody who knew how closely knit American and British undercover operations are would imagine that an American agent would rub out a British one. Particularly not at the level on which both of them operated. And there’d be other questions. Motive. The missing murder weapon. The open rear window. The mysterious fourth party (me). No, they’d clear him, all right.

But there’d be this funny shadow. He wouldn’t be able to bring me up in his defense. He wouldn’t be able to explain away everything. And there’d always be that strange doubt hanging over it all. There’d be rumors behind Basil’s back, rumors that he hadn’t told everything he knew, and perhaps, just perhaps, that meteoric rise of his would develop a hitch in it somewhere, someplace along the way to the higher State Department levels, or the Cabinet, or the Senate, or wherever people in his social circle are programmed to end up. Perhaps, then, he’d get sidetracked for a hitch or so. He’d sit on a back burner for a while like any other poor simp who hadn’t had his background or advantages, and maybe — just maybe — he’d begin to wonder how things had come to this sort of pass.

Maybe Basil Morse, sooner or later, would grow up. And maybe he’d come around to the realization that all the other people in the world were not necessarily the Pawns, and that he and his kind were not necessarily the Players.

Maybe. But I wasn’t going to offer odds on it.

I picked up the phone and made a couple more calls. Anonymous tips for the Crown Colony cops, with a built-in time lag in each tip, enough to allow me to clear out and be on my way out of Hong Kong by the time they arrived. I called the Kowloon cops and sent them to Wanchai, across the Straits. Then I called the Victoria cops and told them about the dead men over here in Tsim Sha Tsui. Then I wiped the receiver clean. And I went out the back way and down to the street, came around the block to Nathan Road, and hailed a passing cab. “Kai Tak Airport,” I said.

I was going home.