Sheer inspiration, impulse, that leaped into his mind from nowhere.
Her white forehead knitted in the smallest of frowns. Her skin was clear and milky white, her hair black as tar and worn in a chignon, pulled back tight and bunned at the nape of a slender neck.
"Prove it to me, Mr. Carter? How?"
"By coming out with me for a drink. Right now? And dinner later? And then, well, anything you want to do."
She did not hesitate as long as he thought she might. With the slightest hint of smile she agreed, showing the fine teeth again, but she added: "I don't quite see how having drinks and dinner with you will prove that my lectures aren't dull."
Nick laughed. "That's not the point, Doctor. I'm trying to prove that I'm not really a dope."
For the first time she laughed. A small effort, but a laugh.
Nick Carter took her arm. "Shall we go, Dr. Milholland? I know a little outdoor place near the Mall where the martinis are out of this world."
By the second martini they had built a rapport of sorts and both were feeling more comfortable. Nick had thought the martinis might do it. They most always did. The odd fact was. he was becoming most sincerely interested in this dowdy Dr. Murial Milholland. She had taken off her glasses once, to clean them, and her eyes were a wide-set gray specked with green and amber. Her nose was ordinary, laced with little freckles, but her cheekbones were high enough to flatten her facial planes and give her face a triangular cast. It was a plain face, he thought, but certainly an interesting one. Nick Carter was an expert, a connoisseur of beautiful women, and this one, with a little grooming and some fashion advice could be...
"No. Nick. No. Not at all what you're thinking."
He gazed at her in puzzlement. "What was I thinking, Murial?" After the first martini had come the first names.
The gray eyes, swimming behind the thick lenses, studied him over the rim of the martini glass.
"That I'm really not as dowdy as I seem. As I look. But I am. I assure you that I am. Every bit as. I'm a real Plain Jane, Nick, so just make up your mind to it."
He shook his head. "I still don't believe it. I'll bet it's all a disguise. You probably do it to keep men from making passes at you."
She fussed with the olive in her martini. He wondered if she was used to drinking, if the alcohol might not be getting to her. Vet she appeared sober enough.
"You know," she said, "that's pretty corny, Nick. Like the movies and the plays and the TV shows where the frumpy spinster always takes off her glasses and turns into the golden girl. Metamorphosis. The caterpillar into the gilded butterfly. No, Nick. I'm sorry. More sorry than you know. I think I'd like it that way. But it isn't. I'm just a dowdy Ph.D. who specializes in sexology. I work for the government and I give dull lectures. Important lectures, maybe, but dull. Right, Nick?"
He knew then that the gin was beginning to get to her. He wasn't sure he liked that, because he was genuinely enjoying himself. With Nick Carter, top killer for AXE, lovely ladies were a dime a dozen. There had been one yesterday; there would probably be another one tomorrow. This girl, woman, this Murial, was different. A small tremor, a little shock of recognition, moved in his brain. Was he beginning to get old?
"Don't I, Nick?"
"Don't you what, Murial?" He had been wandering.
"Give dull lectures."
Nick Carter lit one of his gold-tipped cigarettes — Murial did not smoke — and glanced about him. The little sidewalk cafe was thronged. The late April afternoon, as softly impressionistic as a Monet, was fading into gauzy twilight. The cherry trees along the Mall were glowing panaches of color.
Nick indicated the cherry trees with his cigarette. "You've got me, honey. Cherry trees and Washington — how can I tell a lie? Hell yes, your lectures are dull! But you aren't. Not in the least. And remember — I cannot, in these circumstances, tell a lie."
Murial took off her thick glasses and put them on the tiny table. She put her small hand on his big one and smiled. "That may not seem much of a compliment to you," she said, "but to me it's a hell of a big one. A hell of a big one. Hell? Did I say that?"
"You did."
Murial giggled. "I haven't sworn in years. Or enjoyed myself in years like I have this afternoon. You're a nice man, Mr. Nick Carter. A very nice man."
"And you're a little loaded," said Nick. "You'd better lay off the sauce if we're going to do the town tonight. I don't want to have to carry you in and out of nightclubs."
Murial was polishing her glasses with a serviette. "I really need these damned things, you know. I can hardly see a yard without them." She put the glasses on. "Can I have another drink, Nick?"
He stood up and put money on the table. "No. Not right now. Let's get you home and changed into that one evening gown you were bragging about."
"I wasn't bragging. I have got one. Just one. And I haven't worn it in nine months. Haven't needed it. Until tonight."
She lived in an apartment just over the Maryland line. In the taxi she put her head on his shoulder and was not very talkative. She seemed to be deep in thought. Nick did not try to kiss her and she did not seem to expect it.
Her apartment was small, but lavishly furnished in good taste and in an expensive neighborhood. He judged that she did not lack for money.
After a moment she left him in the living room and disappeared. He had just lit a cigarette, frowning and having second thoughts — hating himself for them — but there
were
three more sessions of this goddamned silly seminar and he
was
under orders to attend and it just could be strained and awkward. What in hell had he gotten himself into?
He looked up. She, was standing in the door, naked. And he had been right. Under the frumpy clothes there had been, all along, this glorious, white, slim-flanked, gently curving, high-breasted body.
She smiled at him. He noticed that she had put on lipstick. And not only on her mouth; she had rouged her small nipples as well.
"I have decided," she said. "To hell with the evening gown! I'm not going to need it tonight, either. I never did like nightclubs."
Nick, without taking his eyes off her, stubbed out his cigarette and took off his jacket.
She came toward him, undulant, not so much walking as gliding over the deep pile. She stopped about six feet from him.
"Do you like me this way, Nick?"
He could not understand why his throat was so dry. It wasn't as though he were some teenager having his first woman. He was Nick Carter! Top man for AXE. Professional agent, licensed killer of his country's enemies, veteran of a thousand boudoir bouts.
She put her hands on slim hips and pirouetted gracefully before him. Light from a single lamp shimmered along her inner thighs. The flesh was translucent marble.
"Do you really like me this way, Nick?"
"I love you that way." He began to pull off his clothes.
"You're sure? Some men don't like naked women. I can put on stockings if you like. Black stockings? A garter belt? A bra?"
He kicked a last shoe across the living room. He had never been more ready in his life and he needed nothing but to meld his flesh with the flesh of this dowdy little teacher of sex who bad suddenly turned into the golden girl after all.
He reached for her. She came into his arms eagerly, her mouth seeking his, her tongue slashing at his own. Her body was both cool and burning and it trembled all along the length of his.
After a moment she pulled away enough to whisper. "I'll bet, Mr. Carter, that you don't go to sleep during
this
lecture!"
He made to pick her up, to carry her into the bedroom.
"No," said Dr. Murial Milholland. "Not the bedroom. Right here on the floor."
Chapter 2
Delia Stokes ushered the two Englishmen into Hawk's office at precisely eleven-thirty. Hawk had expected Cecil Aubrey to be on time. They were old acquaintances and he had never know the big Britisher to be late for anything. Aubrey was a big-shouldered man in his early sixties and only now beginning to show traces of a small potbelly. He would still be a tough man in a fight.
Cecil Aubrey was top man in Britain's MI6, that famous counterespionage organization for which Hawk had a great deal of professional respect. The fact that he had come in person to AXE's dingy quarters, come begging as it were, would have convinced Hawk — had he not already suspected — that the matter was of prime importance. At least to the British, So Hawk was prepared to do a little shrewd horse trading.
If Aubrey felt any surprise at the cramped meagerness of Hawk's quarters he concealed it well. Hawk knew that he did not dwell in the splendor of Whitehall or Langley, and he did not care. His budget was tight and he preferred to put every working dollar into actual operations and let the façade decay if it must. The fact was that AXE was in more than financial trouble at the moment. There had been a spate of bad luck, as sometimes happened, and Hawk had lost three top agents in a month. Dead. A cut throat in Istanbul; knife in the back in Paris; one found in Hong Kong harbor, so bloated and fish eaten that death cause was hard to establish. At the moment Hawk had only two Killmasters left. Number Five, a fledgling he did not want to risk on a rough mission, and Nick Carter. Top man. On this upcoming mission he was going to have to use Nick. It was one of the reasons he had sent him to that nutty school, to keep him nearby.
The amenities were brief. Cecil Aubrey introduced his companion as a Henry Terence. Terence, it appeared, was MI5 working in close liaison with Aubrey and MI6. He was a lank man with a dour Scot's face and a tic in his' left eye. He smoked an odoriferous cutty pipe that made Hawk actually light a cigar in self-defense.
Hawk twitted Aubrey about his upcoming knighthood. One of the things that would have surprised Nick Carter about his boss was that the old man read the honors list.
Aubrey laughed a little uncomfortably and brushed it aside. "Ruddy nuisance, you know. Rather puts one in a class with the Beatles. But one can hardly refuse. Anyway, David, I didn't fly the Atlantic to talk about any bloody knighthood."
Hawk puffed a blue stream at the ceiling. He really didn't like to
smoke
cigars.
"I didn't think you did, Cecil. You want something from me. From AXE. You always do. That means you're in trouble. Tell me about it and we'll see what can be done."
Delia Stokes brought in another chair for Terence. He sat in a corner, perched like a crow on a crag, and said nothing.
"It's Richard Philston," said Cecil Aubrey. "We've had a strong clue that he's coming out of Russia at last. We want him, David. How we want him! And this may be our only chance."
Even Hawk was shaken. He had known that when Aubrey came hat in hand it was something big — but this big! Richard Philston! His second thought was that the English would be prepared to give away quite a lot for help in getting Philston. Yet he kept his face serene. Not a wrinkle betrayed his excitement.
"It must be a bad steer," he said. "Maybe a false plant for some reason. Philston would never come out of Russia. The man is no idiot, Cecil. We both know that. We should. He fooled us all for thirty years."
From the corner Terence growled some Scot's malediction deep in his throat. Hawk could sympathize. Richard Philston had made the Yanks look pretty silly — for a time he had actually served as chief of British intelligence in Washington, pulling the wool successfully over the eyes of the FBI and CIA — but he had made his own people, the English, look like absolute morons. Once he had even been suspected, tried, cleared, and had immediately gone back to spying for the Russians.
Yes. Hawk could understand how badly the British wanted Richard Philston.
Aubrey shook his head. "No, David. I don't think it's a bad steer or a plant. Because we've got something else to go with it — there is some sort of deal being arranged between the Kremlin and Peking. Something very, very big!
This
we are sure of. At the moment we have a very good man in the Kremlin, tops in every respect, as good as Penkovskiy ever was. He's never been wrong and now he tells us that the Kremlin and Peking are cooking up a stew that might damned well blow the lid off. But to do it they, the Russians, will have to use their best man. Who else but Philston?"
David Hawk stripped cellophane from a new cigar. He watched Aubrey narrowly, his own withered face as impassive as a scarecrow.
He said: "But your big man in the Kremlin doesn't know
what
the Chinese and the Russians are planning? Is that it?"
Aubrey looked slightly miserable. "Yes. That's it. But we know
where.
Japan."
Hawk smiled. "You people have a good network in Japan. I happen to know that. Why can't they handle it?"
Cecil Aubrey left his chair and began to pace the narrow room. At the moment he reminded Hawk, absurdly, of the character actor who had played Watson to Basil Rathbone's Holmes. Hawk could never remember the man's name. Yet he did not underestimate Cecil Aubrey. Never. The man was good. Maybe even as good as Hawk himself.
Aubrey stopped pacing and towered over Hawk's desk. "For the excellent reason," he exploded, "that Philston
is
Philston! He
ran
my department for years, man! He knows every code, or did. It doesn't matter. This isn't a matter of codes or rigmarole like that. But he knows our ploys, our methods of organization, our MO — damn it, he knows everything about us. He even knows a lot of our men, at least the old-timers. And I daresay he keeps a file updated — the Kremlin must be making him earn his keep — and so he'll know a lot of our new men, too. No, David. We can't do it. It needs an outsider, another service. Will you help us?"
Hawk studied his old friend for a long time. Finally he said, "You know about AXE, Cecil. Officially you're not supposed to, but you do. And you come to me. To AXE. You want Philston killed?"