The Weapon of Night

CHAPTER ELEVEN Meeting For Murder

Five down, if Hakim had been lucky. That left four plus one to go.

Ten little, nine little, eight little Red Chinamen…

Going down like ninepins, but too slowly. And no sign, yet, of the Kingpin, while the precious hours passed in tedious search.

Nick watched the indicators on the panel as he guided the AXE “copter through the night. His gaze was intent, because now at last he had something to look at. The whole craft seemed to be ticking and whirring like a bomb about to burst.

He tightened his circular flight pattern and watched the sizzling green light of the main detectorscope. It narrowed briefly and broadened again as he swung north toward the lake, and the indicator needle on the panel beneath it took a sideways dive and quivered convulsively.

About time.

It had already taken much longer than he had hoped; time enough for him to hear reports of a strange occurrence in Little Rock and for Hawk to jet Julia down to check into it; time enough to begin to wonder if he had not been mistaken after all.

But now he knew he had been right.

If there was a cache somewhere it had to be in the general vicinity of the West Valley plant for the late Mr. Parry’s convenience; it had to be accessible by road for the sake of the others; and it was probably not far, in road miles, from a fair-sized airport. Or so he had figured until he had begun to doubt and punch holes into his own argument.

The holes were plugging themselves up rapidly. The broad band of the dectorscope billowed outward in a spreading, jagged pattern that told him the cache lay down below. South of Buffalo, north of West Valley, close to the shores of Erie.

He circled again until he had the location pinpointed exactly. There was nothing to be seen below him in the darkness but a sweep of breach and a glint of pale moonlight on the water that cast the faintest of glows on a shapeless mass of trees and rocks, but his whole bank of supersensitive instruments assured him that there was something down there that did not belong.

“N3 to Hawk, N3 to Hawk”

Nick gave his report as he circled again, this time slightly to the south toward a landing area.

“If they’re down there they must have heard me,” he said, hovering low over a strip of grassland bordering a sweep of lake sand. “Suggest you put a watch on Buffalo airport and all nearby roads in case they’re sneaking off.”

“I haven’t any more men,” Hawk said tensely. “I have them checking out disturbances from here to hell and back — Hell Gate to Hell’s Kitchen. My God, Carter, I wish you knew just how much trouble we have on our hands. But we did make positive identification of the man in Little Rock, and we did find his suitcase abandoned in his hotel room. Same contents as the one you found.”

“And Hakim?”

There was a pause.

“Beaten brutally,” Hawk said grimly, “Panic victim. He’s alive, but… but let’s get on with the job. I’ll have radiation experts standing by to follow you in when you’re sure. But, you understand, I am positively unable to send you reinforcements.”

“Don’t want any,” said Nick, as the AXE craft came to a feather-soft landing on the grass. “But the roads and the airport —

“I’ll do my best,” Hawk interrupted.

Nick signed off and strapped the AXE-designed portable Geiger counter at his waist with its single earphone against his ear.

Wilhelmina, Hugo and Pierre were waiting in their usual places for the action to begin.

Now for the difficult part — finding the place on foot.

He padded along the beach and through the fringes of trees, following the fluctuating hum in his ear.

Time ticked by. The sensitive instrument sang quietly to him.

He skirted the lake shore and flitted, shadowlike, through groves of trees, cursing the waste of time and urging himself on as the humming grew louder in his ear.

The line of beach and intermittent trees gave way to a stretch of rocks and then to humps of root-tangled land jutting out into the water. He picked his way silently through the bushes, over more rocks, past a great boulder and through another small grove of trees.

He came out of the grove and rounded a pile of boulders. And suddenly the sound in his ear was almost deafening.

He was standing, now, on the outer rim of a small inlet, and his view of the inner curve was blocked by a clump of bushes. It took him a moment to pick his way around them, but when he did he could see the full sweep of the cove and the ancient jetty that jutted into it from the shore. By this time the sound in his ear was so loud that it was unbearable. He turned the instrument off, he did not need it any more.

They had been lucky to find this place. Judas, no doubt, had done the scouting, and he had the expert’s nose for searching out such hidden places. There could not be many such inlets along the coasts of Erie. Someone, long ago, had built a boathouse here in this wild cove, and abandoned it. Maybe because it was so wild; maybe because the rocks here were treacherous. Maybe he had gone broke. But he had gone, and left his shack and jetty for a Judas to make use of.

There was an old but sturdy cabin cruiser bobbing beside the sagging planks with only one dim blue light to give away its presence. Beyond it was the boathouse, sagging like the jetty and apparently unusable, but no doubt reinforced from within and quite capable of storing enough material to keep the Ten busy for many weeks. It must have been quite easy to build, say, a false flooring or wall, and give it a weathered appearance. No reason at all why anyone should ever have stumbled on their cache until it had served its purpose. Nor would the ordinary Geiger counter have picked up the message given off by its contents. However, AXE equipment was not ordinary.

Nick picked his way silently along the curve of the inlet toward the pier. The boathouse was behind it, and behind the boathouse was another grove of trees. Somewhere beyond it, Nick judged, there would be a back road leading to a main highway — one that branched off both to Buffalo and to the West Valley plant.

And the cabin cruiser itself made a useful vehicle, especially if those who used it knew a landing place on the Canadian side of the lake where they might slip off, undetected…

He reviewed his mental map as he glided through the darkness. Niagara Falls was only a stretch of lake and a strip of land to the north. Very, very handy to reach from here, if one had business to attend to in that part of Canada — or any part, for that matter and a certain amount of spy’s skill to go with it.

Judas’s skill was a master of record. And there was no doubt at all that his business interests reached across the border.

Nick passed parallel to the jetty and rounded the inner curve of the inlet toward it. The boathouse was a dark and silent hulk. Only the boat alongside the pier showed any sign of life, and that was no more than a rhythmic bobbing on the water and a pale gleam of blue light.

But the boat could wait. Right now he wanted to be sure about the boathouse.

He edged around it cautiously, staring into the grove of trees for any sign of a watcher and feeling with his hands for an entrance to the rickety building. He found it easily enough, but, of course, the doors that should have been as ramshackle as the building were not only firm but securely locked and barred. The rust on the locks seemed genuine, but he was sure that it was not.

The padlock clanked softly at his touch — and something rustled in the trees.

He drew back into the darkest of the shadows and listened to the night. He heard crickets, the flutter of birds’ wings, the sigh of a low breeze in the leaves, a frog, the splat of water as the cruiser gently swayed and rocked. Nothing alarming, nothing out of place. Yet, his muscles were taut with expectancy, and the hair on the back of his neck stood out like porcupine quills.

Someone was near. He was sure of it.

But nothing moved as he strained his eyes and cars into the darkness, and after a long, waiting moment he took the tiny compasslike device from his pocket and trained it first in the direction of the boat and then at the shambles of the boathouse. It gave no reaction to the boat. But as Nick swung it back toward the boathouse he could see the little illuminated needle jerking convulsively around the dial in his cupped hands, and then he was sure the boathouse was the supply depot and the boat was the meeting place.

So. He would attend their next meeting, whenever it might be.

Blue light from the boat spilled across the jetty and made a shining path of it. He would have to turn back around the curve of the inlet, strip, and slide into the water, or he might be seen by… by whatever it was that was making his skin crawl.

He inched his way forward, wishing for the thousandth time in his life that he had eyes in the back of his head, eyes with built-in night sights to turn the darkness into light. But he did not. His night senses were exceptionally acute, but he was only human.

His foot scrunched across a tiny, unseen twig when he was about five feet from the boathouse and heading stealthily for a cluster of tall boulders. He heard the other sound in that same instant and knew that he had given himself away. There was a rustle of cloth behind him and the softest of footfalls; he flung himself sideways and jerked Hugo loose from his sheath. But the two muscular arms were already locking themselves around his neck in a blinding stranglehold. They tightened around his windpipe, squeezing mercilessly. Nick kicked backwards violently as his own hands shot up to claw at the ones at his throat. His kick missed, as the man behind him sidestepped with an agile, twisting movement. The grip became a neck-breaking bear hug.

Hugo’s flicking blade bit deep into the pressing hands. They loosened infinitesimally to change position, but then the grip became a choking armlock. The man was tall and incredibly powerful. His clutch was iron and his determination must have been made of the same stuff, because Hugo was making no impression. The grip tightened further and then there was a sudden savage twist that had Nick almost off his feet. He thrust backward with the stiletto’s ice-pick blade and had the satisfaction of hearing a pained grunt. Then he rolled with his attacker’s own twisting movement and threw himself hard on the ground, dragging the other with him. Again there was a gasp of pain, but the grip still held him. Dizziness began to blur his mind. His throat and chest were burning in a blaze of agony. Even as his mind swirled he grudgingly admired the other man’s tenacity, because apparently Hugo’s bite was beginning to take effect at last, although the iron hold was still choking him inexorably.

He brought his elbow back with all his strength and slammed it hard and deep into the other man’s stomach, and when the loud grunt came and the feet flailed he twisted abruptly and wrenched himself free. A long, bony knee jabbed upward toward his groin and he dodged it with a rapid rollover. It struck his thigh but he brushed it aside with a swift kick of his own that brought a savage sound from the other man and a miraculously swift movement.

The man was on his feet — incredibly, on his feet — and his right hand was thrust inside his jacket.

Nick was up and pouncing. His left hand caught at the other’s reaching arm and twisted it, and Hugo sank into the chest. The tall man uttered an animal sound and kicked out in a whiplike motion that snaked his leg past Nick’s and made his own long body sway like a falling tree. The man swore furiously and chopped out with both hands.

Nick ducked low and kicked upward from his half-crouch even as he rose. His toe connected with the chin and the tall man rocked and grunted. He cursed. In Chinese.

“That was your last chance, friend,” Nick said conversationally, and nailed Hugo through the fellow’s neck.

The man gurgled and kicked out, his lanky body flailing like an injured octopus, and his hands and feet thrashed in motions of attack. Again Nick felt a wave of reluctant admiration. The fellow was refusing to die, prolonging the battle and his own agony.

Hugo drew back and darted forward one more time.

The tall man’s hands clawed wildly at Nick’s face, while his body, still almost upright, teetered crazily, fighting death itself. For a long moment the tall figure stood there, swaying and squirming. Then it dropped like a felled oak.

Nick crouched beside it, waiting, meticulously wiping Hugo’s blade on the other man’s sleeve and probing the darkness with his ears and eyes. The dying heart slowed and stopped. The silence was even deeper than before.

His listening ears caught nothing but normal night sounds.

He hoisted the body over his shoulders and carried it to the nearest clump of rocks. When he had dumped it on the other side he played the thin beam of his flash over the narrow, flat-planed face and powerful body.

No doubt of it. Six down, and three-plus-one to go.

The contents of the pockets told Nick that he was searching one John Daniels of New York. Known as J.D.? He did not know; he did not care. All he cared about was six down and three-plus-one to go.

He straightened up, still listening. The instinct, the trained instinct that had served him so many times before, told him that he was now alone.

Nick walked cautiously at first and then more boldly through the pale moonlight. At the boathouse he paused briefly to double-check his instinctive feeling that his only company was one dead man, and then he glided openly along the jetty to the boat. No shadowy figures leaped at him and no guns spat.

The boat had one small cabin, with a separate wheelhouse, a lot of deck space and a tiny galley. Once upon a time it must have served a fisherman well. But now it —

Now it was a meeting place, and he could hear a car somewhere in the distance.

He boarded the boat quickly and gave it a rapid onceover. Everything else about it was old and dilapidated, but the engine was new. The small hatch in the after section held rope and canvas. After a moment or so it also held Nick. He propped the overhead door open with one hand and pricked up his ears. The sound of the car faded out as he crouched there.

Long minutes passed.

He had just about decided that the car must belong to some local resident when he heard the rustle of leaves from the shore and then the footsteps on the creaking jetty.

Wilhelmina slid into his hand. He fitted the silencer on while he waited for his guests.

Low whispers carried to him through the night air. Chinese whispers. He strained his ears to listen, and fragments came to him.

“… should be here before us… car… hidden… but where can he be? He only… from New York.”

“His orders may… changed. Perhaps Judas….”

“Surely we… notified? After all the trouble we took to meet at Buffalo air —”

“Quiet! Might be… Yuan Tong, you stay on deck… Watch…”

“Nothing to…”

Now the whispers were clearly audible “Yes, but don’t forget our losses. We must take care.”

The boat rocked as one man… two men… three men boarded her.

Nick peered through the barely open door of the hatch.

The three men were looking around the boat.

“All seems well,” one murmured. “It must be that he was delayed in New York. Perhaps by misadventure? We should make contact with him.”

“Should we not search?” the second man whispered.

“For what?” snarled the third. “Can an army hide here? Would Judas have us meet him here if he were not sure that it is safe? No, we will contact Jing Du from within. Yuan Tong will do guard duty. Not so, A.J.?” Nick heard a slightly fruity chuckle, and the second man nodded and answered in an exaggerated southern American accent. “Yeah, sure, you bet, C.F.,” he twanged, and his face stretched in an ugly grin.

Two men, carrying suitcases, went into the small cabin and closed the door. Yuan Tong, alias A.J., sat down on a coil of rope and opened his large traveling bag to haul out a gun.

Nick knew the weapon. It was a particularly nasty Chinese device, a minor mortar with a repeating action that made it more than twice as murderous and swift as the average automatic.

Yuan Tong sat still for a moment, half-listening to the soft murmur of voices through the partly open cabin porthole and feeling his gun barrel with a loving touch. Then he rose restlessly and began to prowl about the deck.

He lifted a canvas and peered beneath it. He stopped at the low side rail and gazed out over the lake. He strolled into the wheelhouse. He looked in through the cabin port. He stared back at the boathouse and the grove of trees.

And then he strolled casually toward the deck hatch within which Nick lay hidden.

Nick watched him through the narrow opening made by his own clutching fingertips. His other hand tightened reflexively on Wilhelmina — and then slackened. Even the low pop of the silencer would be heard by the others who sat so close by, and then there would be the thud of the body and the clatter of the falling gun onto the deck. Too loud; too chancy.

He would have to take another kind of chance.

He waited. Maybe Yuan Tong would not look into the hatch.

The man approached slowly, almost languidly, his weapon dangling from his hand. And then suddenly all that Nick could see of him was a thick shape blocking out nearly all of the dimly glowing light, and the weight of the hatch cover lifted from his fingertips.

It took Nick one split second to put Wilhelmina silently down upon a coil of rope and tense his body for the spring. Then the hatch cover opened above him and he made his move. In a lightning grab he caught the dangling gun and thrust it down beside Wilhelmina even as the steely fingers of his left hand went for the other’s throat. Then both of his hands were acting together, clamping themselves swiftly and savagely at Yuan Tong’s neck and squeezing with an expert viciousness born of the desperate need to do the thing right and do it quickly. He heard a tiny strangled gasp and felt the hatch cover thud down heavily against his arched back, and he offered up a small and silent prayer that the noises were not as loud as they seemed to him.

Yuan Tong’s feet were scraping along the deck like files over rough sandpaper and his mouth was working in a frantic effort to produce some sound. Nick tightened his grip around the neck and pulled down with a sudden snapping jerk that brought the Red Chinaman’s belly down hard against the edge of the hatch and almost on top of him. There was another sound, a sharp expulsion of breath, and flailing arms dug into his body from above. But they were like bugs on a beach for all the harm they could do. Nick’s thumbs had found the arteries in the other’s neck and they were pressing in relentlessly. Harder, harder, harder! he commanded himself, and poured all his strength into that one act of squeezing. The man’s body arched suddenly and then relaxed. Nick changed his hold by fractions of inches and concentrated on the windpipe. Hot breath belched into his face… and sighed away to nothingness. Yuan Tong sagged on top of him and the hatch cover sagged down with him.

Nick crawled out from under and raised the cover silently. No outcry came to meet him. There was nothing to be heard but the gentle sounds of the lake and a low tap-tapping from within the cabin.

And lots of luck to you, Nick thought grimly. Still crouching where he was, he turned and gave one final, devastating chop against both sides of the Red Chinaman’s neck. Unnecessary, perhaps, but it did not pay to take too many chances.

He retrieved Wilhelmina, wriggled out of the hatch, and lowered the lid silently over the late Yuan Tong.

Seven little Red Chinamen, gone.

Nick padded to the single open porthole of the tiny cabin. The tapping had stopped and two low voices were engaged in an animated discussion in colloquial Chinese. But it told him nothing he did not already know — mainly that J.D. was not answering from New York.

He waited. Maybe they would go on to something more illuminating.

“But Judas’s message said we were to plan to finish this tomorrow,” one said, “How in the name of Satan will we do it when we are so few?”

The other grunted. “It was planned for few,” he murmured. “Judas will know what to do. After all, this is only a question of proving that it can be done. One final wave of terror, and the American fools will be reduced to gibbering, terrified idiots. Do you know what people were talking about on the plane, what they were saying? That the Martians have landed! That they are being taken over by creatures from outer space. Tee, hee, heel With such a mentality, do you not think they will all be jelly by the end of tomorrow night?”

“I myself may be jelly by the end of tomorrow night,” the first said moodily. “They know about us, don’t you understand? They are picking us off slowly, one by one. It is the Russian woman and that Egyptian Sadek. They have us marked for death.”

“Pah! You talk like a gibbering American yourself. How can they possibly…?”

But Nick’s ears had picked up something else.

There was a car approaching from somewhere beyond the glade of trees. As he listened, the sound of its motor grew louder. And then stopped.

It had to be Judas. It had to be.

Well, two was company. And four made two too many. He had been waiting for a long time to meet Judas again and he did not want the scenery cluttered up with extras.

He slithered silently around the tiny cabin. Seconds later the lockpicker’s special had done its work and the two men were locked in. He thought, but he could not be absolutely sure, that the trees in the grove were rustling with an extra sound.

The two voices were whining on. Not for long, Nick told them silently, and drew Pierre from his pocket. He gave the deadly little gas bomb one quick twist and dropped it lightly through the partly open porthole. It landed with a little click, and rolled.

“What was that?” The two men leaped to their feet. One went groping after Pierre and the other reached for the door. Nick closed the porthole quietly and waited. No doubt they would open it within moments, but that would not help them. He ducked down out of sight. No need to watch them die.

But they did it loudly, much too loudly. It took only slightly more than thirty seconds but in their dying throes they screamed in gurgling, high-pitched voices and hammered on the door. For a moment he thought the flimsy boards would shatter beneath their weight even though Pierre’s swift-acting poison was already gnawing their nervous systems, and he braced himself against the quivering door to hold it shut.

Was there, or was there not, a sound of footfalls coming through the trees? Hurry with your dying, damn you!

The screaming and the pounding stopped with a curious abruptness and there were two dull thuds. He counted slowly to ten and then rose to peer through the porthole.

Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two….

Nine little Red Chinamen, gone. The last two were dead heaps on the floor.

He ducked down low on the deck and crawled aft, past the hatch he had turned into a coffin. There was still one man to go. The tenth man, the biggest of them all.

A bird fluttered and squawked. And then the glade of trees was silent but for the soft sighing of the breeze. A thick bank of cloud obscured the moon. Everything was in utter darkness on the shore.

Nick crouched behind the shallow bulkhead screening himself from view. The blue light would make him a sitting duck if he so much as raised his head. And yet he could scarcely put it out at this stage.

A new sound began with a low trilling and” then built into a fluting bird call that rose and fell in the cool night air. It ended in tense silence and Nick went on waiting, mind racing and muscles taut. There was someone out there and it had to be Judas, and the sound was a signal of some sort. But what in God’s name was the answering signal?

The sound came again; rising, falling, dying away. Silence settled again.

He had to do something, answer somehow.

Nick pursed his lips. A low, trilling sound came out of them, a sound that built into a fluting bird call that rose and fell like the call from the glade, then drifted into silence.

There was a rustle. Something moved among the trees — moved away from him. Wrong answer!

He cursed softly and flung himself over the side to land lightly on the jetty in a running crouch. Harsh sound spat past his ear but he was ready for it. Wilhelmina spat back as he zigzagged rapidly along the sagging pier and flung himself toward the boathouse, then around it toward the grove of trees and the sound of running footsteps. The splat of fire came back at him and Wilhelmina answered sharply, aiming at the little burst of flame.

Then suddenly the bursts of flame were gone and he could no longer even hear the sound of footsteps. He paused for a moment, tuning eyes and ears into the silent darkness, and then he heard the unmistakable sound of a car door opening. A motor raced, and he ran toward it with Wilhelmina nosing out in front of him and his feet picking out a path between the trees. Judas’s car, of course, and Judas was making a getaway!

The first shot sang past his ear before he even saw the car — the first shot of a fusillade that sent him belly-down to the ground and pumping shots into the dim shape of a streamlined sports car that stood there with motor running, lights out, and windows spitting bullets in all directions.

He pumped lead into the tires and guts of the car before he realized with a shock of horror that the bullets were still spewing wildly in all directions and also that the car was not moving so much as an inch. Then he crawled toward it frantically, beneath the aimless spray of bullets — and saw that the car was empty. No Judas! Nick swore again, this time out loud, and snaked his way below the spray of fire in search of the other cars he knew must be there somewhere.

He found them both, after a minute or two. First, a bug-shaped Volkswagen, deep in the trees, and empty, then a large sedan, also empty.

That left Judas — but what did it leave Nick?

The decoy shots from the rigged sports car stopped suddenly, and again there was absolute silence. Nick turned and tore out of the glade like a demoniacal hunter after his prey, his mind racing. If Judas had intended to use one of the other cars he would have done so already, while Carter was shooting back at the decoy fusillade. But he had not. So that left Judas with a choice of two things to do: One. Get out of here on foot — and that was crazy. Two. Use the lake — and that made sense.

It made such inevitable, awful sense that he was hardly surprised to hear the sound of the cabin cruiser’s motor churning as he rounded the corner of the boathouse and ran like a madman toward the jetty. He was still running when the boat pulled away from its moorings and tore off half of the ancient jetty behind it, and he fired off his last two shots as he ran along what was left of it. The slugs slammed into the wheelhouse and the man at the wheel ducked quickly, then turned around, and laughed wildly. The face could have belonged to any rather ugly man — but it was the face of Hakim’s sketch. And the compact body, one arm outstretched and blazing fire, was that of the elusive Judas.

Shots skimmed past Nick’s head and searing flame burned through his shoulder but he hardly felt it through the blaze of his own rage and frustration. Yards ahead of him the motor picked up speed and the wake of the boat rocked what was left of the rotting pier.

There was still a chance — one desperate chance. Nick plunged into the water and began swimming furiously. The motor coughed and surged and the wake rolled over him in billowing waves. He buried his face in the water and kicked mightily, pounding his way powerfully through the darkness like an avenging torpedo. For a moment it seemed that he was gaining. And then the engine roared triumphantly; the boat shook and heaved and sped away from him as if jet-propelled, and left him in a maelstrom of seething waves and spray. He trod water, grimacing as he watched it go. It skimmed away with incredible speed, and through the exultant sound of its departure he thought he could hear the peal of high-pitched laughter.

For a moment longer he watched it shrinking into the distance. And then, seething with anger, he churned his way across the inlet in his waterlogged clothes and dragged himself, dripping onto the shore.

Nine down, and one to go.

The morning brought with it a gruesome story of an ancient cabin cruiser abandoned on the Canadian side of Lake Erie with two dead men in its tiny cabin. But of the man who must have piloted the vessel there was no sign even through the search for him had started very soon after his escape across the lake.

“But he can’t have gotten far,” said Nick, staring sightlessly at the bluish smoke rings wafting toward the ceiling of his motel room. The AXE “copter was hangared at Buffalo airport nearby and he was ready to use it again at a moment’s notice. Police had cordoned off the lake inlet and radiation experts were working busily in the boathouse where they had found much of West Valley’s missing material. “He wouldn’t want to go far. If he’s got something set up for tonight — the final panic push, in whatever form it may take — he must be planning to do it in this general area. Or why else gather his men at the lake? No, sir. My best bet, as long as you’ve got everything else set up, is to wait right here and be ready to pounce. He’s somewhere in the New York-Ontario region, and I’d stake my life on that.”

“Hope you don’t have to,” Hawk said grimly, chewing savagely at the end of his cigar. “And I hope you’re right. Oh, I have everything set up, all right. Takes time, but by dusk the whole country’ll be ready to swing into action. Hope to God tonight will see the end of this thing. You heard about the radiation riots in Berkeley, in L.A.? Yes — people killing each other in the streets, for God’s sake! I can only pray that the President’s speech will calm things down. Heaven knows it’s true that the worst is over, but will they believe it?”

“They’ve got to,” Nick said harshly. “But if we don’t stop this thing tonight — they won’t.”