The Vulcan Disaster

Chapter Seven

“Mr. Cowles?” the General said again. “Mr. Cowles? Or is it perhaps Mr. Carter?”

I didn’t answer. The only allies I had in that room were silence and the almost total darkness. I circled quietly to my right. If I could pick off the big Oriental first...

“Carter?” said “Meyer”. “Who is this Carter?”

“Shimon,” his partner said. “Let’s go. Let’s...”

“One might as well ask,” the General’s calm voice was saying, “who is this Meyer? Well, we shall get to that later. Meanwhile, the man you have brought here — the man about whom you telephoned — I had been curious to meet him again. It appears the girl has, under pressure, been quite talkative, within her limitations. It appears he is an American agent named Nick Carter. For some reason I seem to have heard of the name somewhere, I can’t think why. Alas, my dossiers are long since burned. He...”

“Shimon, I don’t like this.”

“One moment, Zvy... it seems there is more here than meets the eye. American agent? Carter? How did he...”

Phuong was silent now; I could hear nothing of her at all.

I could hear something else, though: the Oriental was near, and it appeared he’d been well trained. I almost didn’t pick up the tiny scuffing sound of his slippers — soft kung fu shoes, all but soundless on the concrete. I slipped Hugo into my fist, underhand, and moved forward more slowly in a crouch. The ribs ached like hell from that dive and roll.

The General was saying: “Carter, it appears, blundered into the middle of your operation — and mine as well, it seems. More yours than mine so far, though. It seems you are not Meyer: the girl was telling the truth. No matter.”

“But I... I assure you...”

“No matter, I say.” The tone was decisive, final. “The point is that Carter was seeking the item the agent Corbin — the girl’s lover — had just sold to Meyer. It now appears that you, or members of your organization — no, I think you yourself, on second thought — killed Meyer and took the item. This Carter seems to have learned; how, I could not say. At any rate, it has led him to us here...”

“Shimon, please...”

“No; now quiet, please. You say — but how much does he know?”

“Not much,” the General said quietly. “Not much, I think. But enough. Which is of course too much. Here; if you will not turn on your car lights I will be forced to go back and turn on mine...”

“No... no. Zvy? Please? He has the advantage of us in the dark, I think. Confound it, will you, please...”

That meant I had a matter of seconds to get back behind the two cars, out of range of the lights. In the dark I’d do okay, most likely; in the light I’d be just another target. I widened the arc in which I was moving — and ran right into him.

He had something cold and sharp in one hand — something as long and as deadly as Hugo, but with more bulk. I had immediate occasion to find out about the sharp edge. It caught in my sleeve and slashed it all the way to the elbow before withdrawing.

What saved me was his silence. If he’d been trained in karate he’d likely have bellowed at me. That would have gotten the lights turned our way and somebody could have picked me off nice and easy.

I felt the blade — whatever it was — swish past my face. I didn’t bother ducking; by the time I could do so, it had already gone by. Besides, I’m a born counterpuncher. I lunged forward with Hugo and felt him land hard on bone in the middle of the man’s chest. I’d kept him fairly loose in my fist; the wallop didn’t jar my wrist. I gave with the blow and then slashed downward, slicing through the stomach muscles to a point I supposed must be just above the navel.

I could hear his quick intake of breath. It was the only sound he made.

Swiftly, I shoved Hugo upward again, under the ribs. That razor-sharp blade went right into the tough heart muscle; it was like shoving a butcher knife into a slab of raw beef kidney. His body sort of melted down before me. Still with that ghastly silence, making no sound to mark his death, except the silvery ping of his hand weapon, tinkling on the concrete at my feet.

I stooped over, favoring my ribs and picked it up. It was some sort of trident affair, with a handle for grasping, and it’d come in at about fourteen inches and maybe a pound and a half. The blade was flat and as sharp as Hugo’s. I stuck it in my belt and bent over the dead man. Luck: he was packing iron, a short-barrel .38 — poor on accuracy, but I wouldn’t be doing any test-match shooting. I had to get close enough to do something about Phuong, and I made up my mind that I wasn’t leaving there until I’d settled that little matter.

Suddenly the Jag’s lights went on. Almost immediately afterward, the Rolls followed suit. I was very glad I’d backed away behind them. The lights were pointing off where I’d started, when I’d first given them the slip. I moved back, back into the darkness...

The Jag’s engine roared to life. I could hear “Meyer” talking: “Stay by the car. Zvy and I will circle in the Jaguar. Our lights will pick him out. Stay down. He may...”

“Stop” the General said. Zvy, at the wheel, braked. The lights lay full on the dead body of the Oriental, sprawled in a dark puddle; he’d shed a surprising amount of blood from those surface wounds before the heart stopped pumping. “That’s Tamura. I...” The General stepped into view. It was his first mistake, and very nearly his last. I took a nice crouched-over two-handed bead on him with the .38 and shot him twice in the body.

I saw both bullets hit; he was close enough to his own car lights for that. The first slug caught him in the shoulder and spun him all the way around; that shoulder joint would never be much good for anything again. He was tough, though, and stayed on his feet long enough for me to gut-shoot him. My second shot blew him to his knees; from there he crumpled slowly to the ground.

“Zvy!” the bogus Mr. Meyer said. “Now!”

The Jag made for me as I ran, bent over, holding my ribs, for the big Rolls. He’d have gotten me, too, if it hadn’t been for the oil slick he hit in the middle of the big warehouse. It spun his wheels; he hit a skid. By the time Zvy had regained control I’d dived into place behind the big fender of the Silver Cloud. As they went past, I pumped two shots into their side windows. I didn’t think I’d hit anyone.

There was a small sound beside me. The General, in mortal pain, was trying to say something. I bent over... and let Shimon have time to get the big doors open and let the Jag out of the warehouse. They sped away, tires screeching.

“I... oh, my God... I...” the General was saying. I looked at the car. There was no sign of life there. Phuong? I hesitated; then I got my head closer to the dying man’s lips.

“Carter, I... I’m sorry about... the girl... her heart...”

“She’s dead?” I said. A black rage ran through me; I mastered it only barely in time. “General,” I said again. “What was your business with those guys? What was it you were going to sell them?”

“I... it was arms. Hijacked... shipload... arms. Didn’t get to Vietnam... arranged transfer...” I could see his face clearly in the dim light by the side of the car.

“What arms?” I said. “American arms? For Vietnam? What? Where are they now?”

“Look... trunk... Carter,” he said. Big beads of sweat were coming out on his forehead. “I... Oh, God...”

“Trunk. The trunk of the car? Okay. But who are these guys? What are they doing here? What...?”

But he was off in his own world by now. I bent over closer. The General spoke English for politics and German for business, at least when he thought he was talking to Hermann Meyer. He was an old-fashioned Westernized Vietnamese right down the line, though, and he spoke French to God. What I was hearing, ever fainter with every word, was a last confession.

I got up and went over to the car. Phuong lay across the back seat, her face bearing a new, peaceful look I’d never seen on it before. I stood for a moment trying to sort out my thoughts; then I turned back to the General. His face was still now, but it wasn’t peaceful. I bent down again, and rifled his pockets. Wallet; ID; credit cards; pocket pieces. I shoved all of it in my coat pocket and checked his own shoulder holster, wondering why he hadn’t pulled his gun and then I stopped wondering or giving a damn. I was too glad to see Wilhelmina back again. I shoved her in her own holster and went back to the car.

I went through all the pockets and compartments, pocketing absolutely everything that could possibly be of any interest. Then I pulled out the keys — they were still in the ignition — and went back and checked the trunk. Even if I hadn’t known what I was looking for I think I’d have recognized the crate. Nevertheless, in the interest of thoroughness, I grabbed a tire iron and jimmied it open.

It was full of brand-new never-fired M-14s, packed in gooey cosmoline.

I stood up and thought about things for a moment, chewing my lip, cursing my aching ribs. Then I dragged both bodies back to the car and dumped them on the floor in back, at Phuong’s silver-slippered feet. I looked at her again, not without a certain pang, but it wasn’t any time for sentimentality. And she wasn’t the schoolkid on her way to the prom that she appeared to be in her pretty new outfit and expensive hairdo. She was a grown girl who’d gotten in over her head, playing with a bunch of desperate thugs. And she’d made herself a bad bargain...

No use. I couldn’t get it out of my head that she had probably saved my life, back in that alley in Saigon, with her phony story about my helping to fix the General’s return to the United States.

That’s the trouble with debts. You never do get to pay them back. Not really...

I drove the Rolls slowly out the door, looking both ways. There wasn’t much traffic in the area and I slipped down the side street to where it met Queens Road Central. This time I really looked both ways. If I ran into a cop here I’d have some explaining to do. After all, I hadn’t even reported in at Customs, entering the colony.

Satisfied for the moment, I turned the car out onto the main drag, still doing perhaps fifteen. I choked it down even further and put it on the hand throttle. Then I set the wheel straight ahead, opened the door, and slipped out into the street, slamming the door behind me. The car putt-putted slowly down the wide road, headed smack-dab for the Government Offices. I watched it go for a moment, wondering if it’d have been nicer to wrap a red ribbon around it before letting it go...

And that was that. I made it to the Star Ferry just in time to miss the boat, so I wandered over to the Queen’s Pier and worked up a deal to share a wallah-wallah over to Kowloon with a bunch of camera-bearing Japanese tourists. I walked back to the Pen.

When I finally sat down in my own room, I almost cut my leg open. I’d forgotten about that lethal instrument the Oriental had pulled on me back in the warehouse. I pulled it out of my belt as I sat down, giving it a long hard look. I’d never seen anything quite like it before.

Then I got out of my ruined coat, called downstairs, and had a man pick it up and take it to the hotel tailor. Another call brought a bottle of thirty-dollar, hundred-proof scotch and a couple of glasses.

I had two highly salutary, pain-killing snorts. Then, taking as deep a sigh as the ribs allowed, I placed another local call, asked for an extension almost nobody below Cabinet level knew about, and waited.

“Typewriter repair,” the nasal voice on the other end said.

“The hell it is,” I said. “You wouldn’t know an IBM from an ICBM on the best day of your life. Hello, Basil, this is Nick Carter. I’m in town for a couple of days and I thought I’d call in and make everything okay between me and the Department.”

“Oh,” Basil Morse said. “What have you done now?”

“Me? Well, let’s see. In no particular order, I... ah... came in sort of sub rosa. Got myself shanghaied in the middle of some sort of assignment back in Saigon. I...”

“Oh, God. Don’t tell me about it.”

“I won’t. None of your business anyhow. May even be none of my business now, for all I know. I’m not quite sure about my employment status. I...”

“Well, I wouldn’t worry about that.”

“You wouldn’t tell me more.”

“Later, perhaps. Right now you’re frozen in service, frozen in grade, frozen in your retirement-pay level. There is some popular support for finishing the job...”

“Now, now.” Close as Basil ever comes to a joke... “but wherever you go we find bodies — always have. You’re a problem, Nicholas. You were telling me, though. Keeping in mind that this line isn’t secure.”

“Okay. I came here on one job and seem to have stumbled on another. About an hour ago — no, make that two — I bumped off a certain South Vietnamese ex-general who seems to have been moving his heroin business to Hong Kong. I left him in his car, moving slowly but purposefully down Queens Road, over in Victoria.”

“Ah, yes. We just got a call from our man in the police station. The car ran into a police vehicle at the foot of Ice House Street, causing something of a flap. We might have known it was you. Go on.”

“The rest... well, you’d better come over here. I went through his pockets. I have all his junk spread out on the bed right now. I have a few other leads, too. Maybe you’ll want to have a look at it and tell me just what sort of mess I’ve wandered into.”

“What do you mean?”

“If I were to bring a whole shipload of hijacked American guns, virgin stuff still stinking of cosmoline, into the Colony, now, where would I hide it?”

“Say that again.”

I did, with flourishes.

“That explains... there was something our informant couldn’t talk about. Yes, yes. That’d be... Look, Carter. Don’t you move so much as a muscle. I’ll be there three minutes ago. Don’t do anything to attract attention. Just sit tight. Don’t let anyone in.”

I started to say something, but he’d already hung up.