Istanbul (17 page)

It was the head of Mija Gialellis!

N3 felt his breath hiss inward and gather and clot in his lungs. He could not expell it for a long time. He simply stood and stared down at the head.

Mija was still wearing the red beret on the sleek, dark and now bloody cap of hair. The little silver pin Nick had given her glinted at him in the sunlight. The eyes were closed, at peace, but her red mouth was drawn down in a grimace of — terror at the last second?

The Basque was mumbling something, drooling and slobbering. His ruined hands scrabbled at the dirt. "I... not..." he said painfully. "I not order... Kurds, you know Kurds, wild and crazy, I not..."

Nick did not look at the head again. He fell to his knees beside the Basque and put his hands around the man's throat. Not quite understanding why, not even caring why, just knowing that he must somehow avenge Mija, Nick began to squeeze. His fingers cramped. He kept on squeezing. The Basque still breathed. Nick cursed his fingers for their weakness.

The rock overhang, weakened by the blast, began to shift and fall. He let go of the Basque and, with his sure instinct for danger, began to roll away. He rolled like a barrel, over and over. Behind him he heard a crunching, grinding roar as the cliff came down.

When it was quiet he got to his feet and walked back to the cliff. Mija's head had been buried under the fall of rock. Nick saw the Basque's feet sticking out. He pulled the body out. It too was headless. A huge boulder had ground off the man's head! Nick left it and went to the Basque's trailer. Someone had told him that atomic blasts were freakish. He believed it now. The trailer had hardly been touched.

He found his Luger and stiletto and the gas pellet where they had been tossed into a corner by the tilting desk. He stowed the weapons away, wondering how long it would be before a patrol came and what sort of cover story he could give them. It would have to be a good one if he wasn't to rot in a Syrian or Turkish jail for a long time. It wasn't hard to imagine the reaction of the authorities to a single survivor of what must have been an atomic blast — a survivor who was clad in bloody, ragged Kurdish clothes and yet was not a Kurd. A solitary man amidst all the ruin — and millions of dollars worth of raw opium, by now splattered over a great many acres. Yes — the story would have to be a doozy!

The trouble was he still couldn't think very well!

As Nick emerged from the trailer he heard the far off buzz of a plane again. So — finally! Possibly the plane would be able, and ready, to land this time. A patrol wouldn't be far behind.

One of the Kurds was not dead. He lay on the island where Nick had fought so valiantly. Now he pulled his blasted body up and peered over the rocks at the fearful sight. The work of Shaitan no doubt! Allah had indeed forsaken his tribe!

But one lived! One moved! Near the trailer of the one they called the Basque! It was the infidel dog! He lived!

Praise Allah, thought the Kurd as he rolled painfully to his long rifle which lay nearby. He was one of the few who preferred the rifle to the devil guns. He leveled the piece across the rocks and took careful aim. He asked Allah to make his aim good, for surely he was dying and would soon be with the
houris
in Paradise, but first he must send this infidel to Hell. He pulled the trigger.

He was swimming back toward the world, fighting up from a dark and sticky pit, and the struggle was killing him. There were stones where his lungs should be and an iron vise was clamped about his middle; the long curving slide up which he was struggling was greased, he would take a step and then slip back, cursing and crying. Finally, by dint of super-effort, he made it to the top of the slide only to meet a thick wall of dark green glass. He was stopped, trapped, imprisoned behind the thick green glass. He knew then that he was some sort of fish — a poor fish in a gigantic bowl of green glass. Beyond the bowl the real world moved, distorted and thrown into caricature by the lens-like green glass.

Figures moved beyond the glass. Nick rested at the top of the greasy slide and watched them with apathy. He waved to them and tried to cry out, but his voice was a dismal croak and they ignored him. Suddenly he envied those beyond the glass with a terrible envy! They were alive, set apart, of the real world!

He rested and watched them. Vague remembrance stirred in his mind. The one in the dinner jacket! Surely he had seen that one before. He watched now as the figure in the dinner jacket came closer. The sleeked back shiny black hair, the coal dark eyes, the little wisp of moustache — a chiseled hard and handsome face!

The probe of memory slashed deeper — he
did
know this man from someplace! But wait — surely this was a clue! The man in the dinner jacket was going to shave! Shave? No — that couldn't be it! Nick clung to the top of the greasy slide that led back down to Hell and watched the man. He had taken a razor from his pocket, an old fashioned straight razor, and now he was approaching Nick. Nick felt no alarm. He was safe behind the thick green glass. The man with the straight razor could not get through!

Another figure swam into the confused picture. A tall, angular, spidery figure wearing some sort of white smock; a tall man with a vulture's face. Nick watched with great and consuming interest. The two figures were talking now, arguing about something. Nick knew, without knowing how or why, that they were discussing him.

The spidery man with the vulture's face won the argument. He was taking the man in the dinner jacket by the arm now, was leading him to the door, pushing him out of the room. Nick felt an odd sense of relief. Perhaps the vulture man was a friend!

The man in the white smock came back to the green glass barrier. He stood just the other side of it and peered in at Nick. He had something in his hand now. A small cup! Poison? thought Nick.

The white smocked man was reaching now, the small cup steady in his hand. Nick did not shrink away. The thick green glass would protect him. He began to laugh.

The glass shattered in a soft and noiseless explosion. Nick felt himself catapulted back to reality. He stared up at the vulture faced man just as the contents of the cup was forced down his throat.

"Well," said the man bending over him. "So you've come back to us at last." He was speaking English. He stared down at Nick for a moment, false teeth shiny behind bloodless thin lips. In Turkish he said,
"Tunaydin."
Good afternoon.

Nick tried to sit up. The man pushed him gently back down on the white hospital bed. He patted Nick's shoulder, an avuncular gesture that Nick, somehow, knew was very wrong. Swift instinct warned him — everything was wrong! Yet this was a hospital room, no doubt of that, and this man must be a doctor! That plane — the plane he had heard just before he passed out — that must have been either a Syrian or Turkish plane. It or a patrol must have found him and brought him out of the wilderness to a hospital. And yet — the man with the razor! Or had that been a crazy dream?

The man in the white doctor's smock was gazing down at him, an odd little smile on his face. He stroked his pointed chin with tapering, fingers. He
did
look like a vulture, Nick thought. A sort of evil, intellectual vulture. Coldness formed around his heart. He knew where he was now! And he knew who this man was! That plane — it had not been either Syrian or Turkish. It had been
their
plane!

The doctor must have read something of Nick's thoughts. He smiled, showing all of his perfectly fitting false teeth. "I see that you have figured it out, Mr. Carter. I thought you would in time. You are very quick, especially for a man in your condition."

Nick closed his eyes for a moment. He had to think. He was aware of a cloying, persistent drowsiness. Something in the drink he had just been given? His earlier thoughts came flashing back — truth serums and sharp little knives. The AXE man felt slow rage begin to build in him — goddamn it, after all he had been through! Now he would have to stand up to torture! He wasn't at all sure that he could do it — not in his present state.

He said: "My name isn't Carter. I don't know anyone named Carter. Who are you, anyway? And where am I?" Just to check, he thought bitterly. He knew!

The doctor bent over Nick and pulled back the sleeve of the surgical gown. He pointed to the little AXE tattoo. "You do not deny that you are an AXE agent?"

N3 would have liked to spit in his eye, but he was too weak. The sleepiness was growing. "I deny nothing," he said harshly. "I affirm nothing. Now either answer my questions or leave me alone. I'm sleepy as hell."

The doctor smiled again. He fumbled in his pockets for cigarettes, lit one, offered one to Nick who refused. The doctor stroked his chin again.

"You will get sleepier," he said. "You have, in fact, about one hour to live! I have just given you a massive dose of morphine, Mr. Carter!"

"I'm not Carter," N3 said stubbornly. "But I know who you are, you bastard! You're Dr. Joseph Six, aren't you? And I'm in your sanitarium on the Bosphorus. How soon does the torture start, Doc?"

"I don't think you understood me, Mr. Carter. I just told you that I gave you a massive dose of morphine! You are dying now."

Nick grunted. "So you say."

The doctor shrugged. "Very well. You will find out. But as to torturing you, Mr. Carter, we have decided against that. You are much too dangerous to leave alive any longer than absolutely necessary! You claim you are not Carter, of the AXE murder section? Perhaps we are wrong, but I don't think so! You
must
be Carter, though we have no definite proof. Everything we have heard, and seen, points to you being Carter! It may please you, Mr. Carter, and I don't mind telling you now that you are to die shortly, that you have succeeded in wrecking a very important and costly operation!"

"Good for me," said Nick. "But I'm not finished yet. Two more to go — and I'm not Carter!"

Dr. Joseph Six built a little steeple with his long fingers. He peered at the man in the bed. "I think I understand. But
you
don't, not yet. You are dying, Mr. Carter. I am not lying or trying to trick you. Very shortly you will die and we will dress you and leave your body to be found by the Turkish police in Istanbul. You will have died of an overdose of morphine. There will be nothing to point to us — which is the reason I could not let Johnny have his way.
He
wanted to cut your throat — like all the others. I thought it unwise, however. We are getting out — the Chinese are taking over the setup — and I — " here the doctor laughed, a shrill neighing sound, "I for one would like to spend my money in peace. I am an old man now — I should like to retire to the Greek islands and bask in the sun without fear of retribution. So I, er, dissuaded Johnny from cutting your throat. No easy task, mind you. He is something of a sadist, our Johnny. I might even say a psychotic!"

Nick began consciously to fight off sleep. Maybe this bastard was telling the truth! One thing, the man liked the sound of his own voice! Liked to talk. Let him, then. Find out all he could. The chances were that the man was lying — they wouldn't kill him so soon! He had been given something, of course, that was making him hellishly sleepy, probably a new form of truth serum. It would gain them little enough. Hawk's policy, AXE poli-

cy, was to tell an agent nothing more than absolutely necessary. What you didn't know you couldn't tell — not even under torture. Of course he might admit to being Nick Carter, but they seemed pretty sure of that already.

Now he said, "So that guy was really here? The man wearing the tux, the dinner jacket? I thought I was dreaming."

"It was no dream," said the doctor. "He wanted to cut your throat here and now and have done — but as I say it would never do. We want the heat
off,
as you American gangsters put it."

Nick was battling sleep with all his might. He had to stay awake, had to keep talking. "How did I get here?"

Dr. Six lit another of his long, Russian style cigarettes. He said: "Our plane got to the scene of the, er, explosion? From what I'm told there was utter devastation — a new sort of bomb, perhaps?"

Nick was silent.

"It doesn't matter," said Dr. Six. "Our people found you unconscious. You had been creased by a bullet. Nothing serious, just enough to knock you out."

Nick put a hand to his head, felt the light bandage swathing his temples. It was the first time he had been aware of it. He saw also that his ankles were neatly bandaged, and in half a dozen other spots he was wearing either gauze or plaster.

The doctor chuckled, a dry sound without mirth. "You were quite a mess, I hear. But you were alive, the only one alive, and vou were obviously a white man. We had a good man in the plane. He used his head. He searched you and found the AXE mark and brought you back to Istanbul. They landed on the Asiatic side. We brought you here by ambulance — an emergency patient, you know." The doctor chuckled again. "I've kept you under heavy sedation until we could decide what to do — you've been out nearly thirty-six hours!"

Thirty-six hours! Nick glanced at the room's single window. Dusk was falling out there on the Bosphorus. He could see the pale glint of water far across toward the Asiatic side, and as he watched a rusty freighter glided by. She was flying the
Soviet
flag and making for the Black Sea. At least the bastard wasn't lying about that! N3, fighting off unconsciousness, began wondering what was directly under the window?

He made a decision. He asked a question, knowing he was breaking security and not caring at the moment. He had to know.

"There was a girl with me," Nick said. "Never mind who, but there was. The Kurds killed her and cut off her head! At least that's what the Basque said — and I believed him. He was dying. I think he told the truth. You wouldn't know anything about that?"

For a long moment of silence the doctor stared at him with cold pale eyes. Then he shrugged. "What matter? You're dying, too. I'll tell you what I know, even though
you
won't answer my questions. Our man did not see the girl..."