In the lush green hills, now soot-black beneath a moonless sky, the silent watchers waited. There were many of them, but only one knew — or was supposed to know — that on this night of all nights there was something in particular to wait for. And that one, though knowing where to look, was too cautious to steal out from cover and risk alerting the others who did not know what approached them through the night. Still, the watcher was close enough to hear if there was anything to be heard; and knowing what to listen for, the watcher wondered at the silence from the sea. Waves slapped against the rocks and a low wind hissed, but that was all. Perhaps it was just as well, but it was disturbing.
Below, two men in a boat ducked instinctively as the bright shaft of light sliced through the sky and arced down over the black swell of the sea. They both knew the searchlight’s swath would pass them by, for the landing had been carefully planned. The Republic of Haiti was in no sort of financial shape to guard its entire border, land and sea, to close the gaps against all comers. The little madman who was its lifetime president was trying to do exactly that, for all sorts of adventurers swarmed through his tiny land — Cubans, Dominicans, Americans, Venezuelans, assassins, and photographers from Life—and he had had enough of interference from outside. Thus the searchlights and armed watchers at all the likely points of entry. Yet he could not completely cordon off his side of the island with a solid ring of men, and no one in his right mind would have regarded Cap St. Michel as a landing place.
The vast sword of light swung back from sea to land. Neither those who manned the light nor those who watched from clifftops saw the slender conning tower nosing above the wind-tossed sea, nor the small dark shape, the color of midnight, that rode the waves toward the rocky inlet. Even the men were dark, the younger because he had been born in Port au Prince and the other because he had thought it wise to match the shadows while he traveled at night.
Jean Pierre Turnier guided the small craft into the treacherous shallows. The boat was silent, an engineering marvel devised by those for whom the two men worked. The principle on which it operated was far too complex for most men, even Jan Pierre, to grasp, but that did not matter to him. He only knew that it was miraculously silent, that the coastline of his boyhood was as familiar to him as to any man alive, and that when it came to running any kind of boat he could damn near sail it up that cliffside and land his passenger exactly where he had to go. Damn near, but not quite.
He glanced up at the rock face now towering above them. Two hundred feet of almost insuperable obstacle. Flies, he thought to himself, had been known to fall off. He looked at the other man and wondered if even he would be able to make it. Coordination, balance, endurance, all that he had. Six-foot- plus of whipcord strength and steely nerve would help, oui, but was it going to be enough? Jean Pierre was dubious. No one had ever succeeded in climbing this slippery hunk of treachery. Pirates of bygone days had dared their captives to escape them by scaling this precipice. None of them, according to history, had ever made it. Scores had plunged to their deaths on the rocks below.
The other man looked back at him and grinned suddenly in the darkness. Only the whiteness of his teeth showed in the gloom, and the faintest of glints from his eyes, but Jean Pierre could see the strong bearded face in his mind. He thought of their careful preparations and what he had seen of the man in action. Well, maybe, he thought. Maybe. If anyone can do it, he would be the one. But mon Dieu! what a hideous fall it would be, if there were a fall.
The rocks were very close and sharp as shark’s teeth. A high gust slammed against the little boat and swatted it perilously close to a jagged fringe of stone lining the foot of the cliff. Jean Pierre touched a lever and brought the craft almost to a standstill, as if it were a silent hydrocopter, then eased it slowly and with infinite skill toward the lowest and least jagged of the boulders. He lightly fingered a button and an automatic boathook reached out over one buffered side of the boat and tethered it in place. The boat bobbed erratically in the surf but the tethering hook held firm.
Jean Pierre’s companion glanced at the wall of rock. The first few vertical feet were wet and slippery with spray. Above, the cliff face was apparently dry but bland and featureless as a column of concrete. High above, at the rim of the cliff, low bushes grew in profusion. Beyond them was a thick stand of luxuriant trees.
The older man nodded with satisfaction. The foliage would offer him plenty of cover and his dark green fatigues would make him virtually invisible among the night-dark trees. His eyes stared into the dimness above. Yes, there was the narrow break Jean Pierre had told him about, the small patch of space between the trees that became a narrow, natural path into the hills beyond. Silently, he finished what he was doing. No need to stare any longer at that cliff face. He’d be close enough to it in a minute. He checked the straps that held the curved spikes to his boots and found them firm. Wrist-straps, too, were in place; the knuckle duster devices on his fingers fitted snugly and the sharp, clawlike appendages seemed to grow straight out of his muscular hands.
He nodded at Jean Pierre, raised one clawed hand in salute, and swung lightly from the bobbing boat to the lowlying boulder. Once, and once only, he looked up, and then he began to climb. The clawlike pitons on his hands and feet scrabbled quietly at the rock face, found tiny holds, and moved on like cautious crabs.
It was agonizingly slow. Jean Pierre watched, the sick feeling growing in his stomach as little rivulets of sand slid down the cliff and stopped when there was no longer any sand to fall. Only rock, the barest of rock, met the climbing claws. Ten feet… fifteen… twenty. God, it was slow. Twenty-five.… For one heart-stopping moment the booted feet swung free. Jean Pierre sucked in his breath and looked involuntarily at the sharp rocks near the boat. A pebble rolled down with a clatter and a tiny splash. When he looked up again he saw that the clawing feet had regained their hold and were slowly, slowly, moving upward. Thirty feet… another few inches… another couple of feet. It was time he left; there was nothing more for him to do.
He backed the silent boat away from the murderous rocks and turned it once again toward the open sea and the waiting submarine. The muted glow of his wristwatch dial told him that he must hurry. The baby sub had been ordered not to wait for stragglers. He looked back once. About forty-five, fifty feet, he reckoned, and climbing like a hesitant snail up a garden wall.
The man who was climbing was anything but a snail, and the rock face was anything but a garden wall. The night was warm, and the effort of clawing his way up the precipice was taking every ounce of his will power and endurance. He tried to make his hands and feet work automatically while he thought of other things — other things, like the sweat beginning to pinprick his skin and the itch of his new beard. Mentally, he checked the contents of his gear: Castro-like fatigues, with extra inner pockets. Large sums of money, in several denominations and for various uses, including bribery. A back pack, containing a miracle-fiber suit that was supposed to be absolutely wrinkle proof. He hoped it was. Accessories for the suit.
Other accessories… including a Luger named Wilhelmina, a stiletto known as Hugo, and a gas-bomb called Pierre.
Nick Carter went on climbing.
The claws roved over the rock face, biting into its surface and holding him there by minute fractions of inches of knife-sharp steel. There was no way to hurry, nothing to hold onto, nothing but the claw-blades to keep him from the deadly rocks below.
Not quite halfway, yet. And the strain on his body was becoming unbearable. It was not as if he even knew what would be waiting for him at the top. Sure, he had a name to go on, but not much more. The briefing Hawk had given him flashed through his mind. The name was Paolo, and Paolo should be waiting in that mountain cave a mile and a half away.
“Why Paolo?” he had asked the head of AXE.
Hawk had glowered at him. “What do you mean, ‘Why Paolo?’ ”
“An Italian name for a Dominican?”
Hawk had chewed irritably at his cigar. “So? They’re as mixed a lot as we are. Anyway, it may be a code name. Whatever it is, that’s the name you’ll have to use for him. Paolo’s your contact, not Tomas or Ricardo or — or Enrico.”
“It may be a code name!” Nick repeated. “We don’t know much, do we?”
Hawk eyed him coldly. “No, we don’t. If we knew as much as you seem to think we ought to, we probably wouldn’t be sending you. ‘Matter of fact, Carter, we don’t even know that this isn’t a trap.”
A trap, yeah. Encouraging thought. Nick gritted his teeth and went on climbing. The sweat poured down his face. Every muscle and nerve screamed for rest. For the first time he began to wonder, to doubt, if he could really make it to the top.
It was still a long way up. It was also a long way down. And there’d be no second chance.
Get on with it, goddamn you! he told himself fiercely. He knew that he was good for little more of this. It was becoming physical agony. His hands clawed, found nothing, clawed again, and held. He dragged himself up another painful notch.
No, this was ridiculous. He could not afford to think of the sheer impossibility of it. So he forced himself to think back to that unsatisfactory briefing.
“If it is a trap,” he had said, “what sort of trap do you think It might be?”
He remembered Hawk’s answer but it slipped from his clutching mind as the claws on his feet lost their grip. His body slithered downward with appalling speed and the raking pitons scraped uselessly against unyielding stone. He clung like a leech, willing his limbs and his body to plaster themselves against the cliffside and praying that some infinitesmal outcropping would be hooked by the wildly probing, scraping claws and stop his deadly slide.
Nick dug against the rock wall like some giant cat searching desperately for a clawhold. His flailing feet bit into the flinty surface. Found a tiny fault. And held.
He clung there for a moment, breathing heavily and blinking his eyes against the hot sweat. But he knew his toehold was too slight to support him there for more than seconds and he made himself move on. Sideways first, then slowly upward with a surge of desperate effort that took his last reserve of strength. He knew it would not last him to the top.
This is it, he thought dully. What a hell of a way to go.
Then his feet found a two-inch-wide ledge. Miraculously, the rock wall above it was at a slight angle so that he could lean inward and snatch some sort of respite. He took a deep, grateful breath and made himself relax as best he could. A minute passed. Another. His breathing slowed to normal and the knots in his muscles gradually unwound. The searchlight beam that he had forgotten about cut through the sky behind him. Again he became conscious of it, but he knew it would not find him here. Haitian officialdom was so sure the cliff was unscalable — and God knows it looked as though they were right — that they did not even bother to keep an eye on it. Or so said Hawk’s Intelligence reports.
Nick wiped his streaming face against his shoulder and flexed his straining arms. Incredibly, he felt rested and refreshed. His clawed fingers reached upward; his feet sought and found another skimpy hold. A stubborn root brushed against his hands, the first he’d found. He reached for it tentatively and It held.
Perhaps he would make it after all. It seemed easier now.
The night was silent but for the slap of the water below and the gusts of wind through the trees above. He could hear the scrabbling, slithering sounds of his own climb, but he knew that his tiny, ratlike noises were normal sounds for night and would not be noticed. Unless, of course, there were listeners much nearer than there were supposed to be.
Out in the dark sea behind him the baby submarine submerged. The silent boat was in its special compartment and Jean Pierre was in his, his ear to a listening device that relayed the quiet sounds of a man’s slow climb up an impossible incline. He heard, but he was one who was supposed to.
Someone else heard too.
The watcher who knew what to wait for stole silently away from the clifftop and glided shadowlike to the appointed meeting place.
Nick climbed. The going was rough but it no longer seemed impossible. The hardest part of it, now that he knew he was well past the halfway point, was that uncertainty about what lay ahead. A kind of anger swelled within him.
Treasure! for Chrissake! he thought to himself. Trujillo’s hidden millions, and I’m supposed to find them in Haiti? This whole thing was insane. Somewhere up there in the darkness was a man named Paolo, leader of an outfit with the comicbook name of The Terrible Ones. The Terrible Ones! Nick chuckled silently and bitterly. No doubt the Mafia of the Caribbean, and Uncle Sam was being taken for another ride. Supposedly these people were an organization of Dominican patriots, itching to get their hands on some of the ex-dictator’s loot and use it for the good of their country. That was their story, anyway, and they had gone to Hawk, and the head of AXE had called on Carter. So here was Killmaster, climbing up a cliff in Haiti to meet the kingpin of The Terrible Ones. And what was he to do when he met them?
Hawk had shrugged. “The usual. Find out who they are and how they stand. Help them if they’re on the level. Check into this business of Operation Blast and put a stop to it. That’s all. Now, as to how you’ll be making contact, you’ll go with Jean Pierre Turnier in the Q-boat and aim for Cap St. Michel. Here’s the map…
It always looked so simple, back in Washington.
Now it was Haiti, one hour past midnight, and Paolo of The Terrible Ones was waiting in the shadows.
Nick glanced upward. The rim of the cliff and the low fringe of bushes were now only a few feet above him. He paused for a moment and took breath for the final effort. It was windier up here, and the gusts plucked at his clothes. And it seemed a little lighter, too. He took a quick look at the sky. Yes, the clouds were thinner, and a few stars gleamed above.
It was just as well, for he would need their trace of light to lead him through the trees.
He reached up for the last lap of his climb and moved on steadily.
His clawing hands came at last to the edge and clung there. One more thrust of his weary legs, and he would have it made. He peered over the edge to see what lay beyond, for he had no intention of grasping loose twigs and sliding back down that monstrous slope.
He stared straight ahead at something that should not have been there. At the cave, yes, but not right there in front of him only inches away from his eyes. His gaze traveled up from the heavily booted feet, up the unmoving, stolid legs, up over a massive chest, up to a bearded face.
The face split into a grin of broken teeth. Even in the dimness it did not look like a pleasant face.
“Welcome, amigo,” a low voice whispered. “I help you, yes?”
Nick gave a quiet grunt and nodded as if in acknowledgment, but his brain was racing. Welcome, amigo, hell. There were names and code phrases to exchange, and “Welcome, amigo,” was not among them. He saw the big dim form move even closer to him, and he dug his clawed feet into the cliffside with all his strength. One hand grasped at the roots of a bush and the other raised as if reaching for help. There was a low chuckle, and a heavy boot smashed down agonizingly on his grasping hand.
“Yankee pig!” hissed the voice, and the boot swung again. This time it came straight for Nick’s head.
The sub was miles away, sliding silently through the black sea. Jean Pierre sat in his cramped quarters with his ear to a small black box and his mouth open in horror.
“Yankee pig!” the receiver whispered. Then there was a second thump, louder than the first, and a sound that began as a grunt and ended in a piercing scream.
Take Me to Your Leader
He struck again with savage fury. His head still reeled from the glancing kick and his ears were full of the animal howl, but it was his life or the other’s and he was damned if he was going to lose his life at this stage of the game. The first swift raking of his reaching hand had already torn a lower leg to shreds. Now he had an advantage and he was going to use it.
Nick lunged upward as he struck, driving the steel claws into the thick thigh and slashing them sideways across the lower abdomen. The scream now was one long continuous litany of frightful pain and the booted feet no longer kicked out but tried to back away. The claws caught deep into the flesh and held; there was no retreat for the welcomer with the unfriendly feet. Nick heaved himself up over the cliff edge, exhausted and half-dazed, still clutching his quarry. The big fellow made a handy anchor, with the hand-pitons sunk into the squirming body, and Nick had no qualms about using him as long as he was there. The scream rose and the man staggered backwards and fell. Nick landed heavily on top of him and wrenched his hand free of the oozing flesh. His welcoming committee squirmed under him, legs and arms jerking, obscenities babbling from his throat. For a moment they both lay there, writhing like a pair of unlikely lovers, and then the big man suddenly twisted his body and stumbled to his feet. Nick rolled over, exhausted beyond endurance. He could see the big shape looming over him, clothes torn open and hideous wounds deforming his lower body, and he could see the long knife that appeared in the other man’s hand, but he could not seem to make his muscles move.
The cliff edge was behind him. The big man came toward him, knife poised for a downward thrust and his face a maddened mask of pain and hatred.
For God’s sake do something, Nick told himself wearily, and felt like vomiting. The fellow’s guts were dribbling out.
The knife came downward in slow motion and the man staggered forward. Nick gathered strength and kicked out in a swift jack knifing movement that caught the man in the chest and clawed him up into the air. Again there was that horrible scream, and the man hung balanced in the air like a circus acrobat on his partner’s feet. Only these feet were hooked and deadly. Nick kicked up again, heard the ripping of cloth, and felt his burden fall free. He twisted sideways away from the thing that flew howling through the air, over the edge and off the cliff.
The scream ended with a sickening thud. Then there was a splash. Then — nothing.
Nick sat up wearily. So much for his silent arrival. He rose groggily to his feet and listened to the night sounds. There were shouts somewhere in the distance. He’d better get going.
He moved clumsily into the stand of trees and propped himself against a sturdy trunk while he removed the piton-claws from his hands and feet. They were sticky with blood. Handy little bastards you turned out to be, he congratulated them grimly, and thrust them into his back pack. He stood under the trees for a moment gathering breath and willing his heart to slow its galloping motion. A light flickered somewhere to the left of him. He could not tell how far away it was, but the sounds of men’s voices were still muted. A bird chirped anxiously close by, and he noted its sound absently as he moved on. No doubt disturbed by my stealthy arrival, he told himself sourly, and made for the narrow path between the trees that Jean Pierre had told him he would find.
He did find it, and he walked along it with silent care, listening and watching. Funny, that damned bird seemed to be following him.
Nick looked over his shoulder. Nothing there. And nothing moved in the trees. The bird chirped again… and the chirp wandered off-key.
Suddenly he remembered the small two-way radio in his inside underarm pocket Feeling slightly foolish, he bent his head and chirped into his armpit. Two chirps, and then he spoke.
“It’s okay, Jean Pierre,” he said, very softly but distinctly. “That was the other fellow.”
“Thank God!” His fellow AXEman’s voice came to him as a tiny, distant sound, but he could hear Jean Pierre’s relief. There was a pause. Then: “What other fellow?”
“Don’t know,” Nick said softly. “He didn’t mention his name. But he wasn’t friendly. Neither was he Chinese, nor Haitian. If a guess is any good, I’d say he could have been a Cuban.”
“Cuban!”
“Yeah.”
“But why—? What happened, anyway?”
The lights were coming closer, though not directly toward him. Nick put his lips closer to the tiny mike.
“Look, we’ll chat some other time, all right? If that wasn’t Paolo who just went over the cliff I still have to meet him, and these woods of yours are filling up with people. Tell Hawk I made it as far as the path on the cliff top. And next time don’t chirp me, I’ll chirp you. Okay?”
“Right.”
Nick moved on through the trees. His body felt as though it had been caught in a garbage grinder and he knew he was in no shape for any more heavy action tonight. So he trod softly, listened well, and hoped that it was not Paolo he had clawed to death. The thought that it might have been opened up a range of possibilities he did not care to think about, and most of them spelled t-r-a-p. And if it wasn’t Paolo of course it was somebody else, and that didn’t make for an any more pleasant picture.
He gave up thinking about it and concentrated on heading silently for the cave. Maybe there he’d find some sort of answer.
Lights were stabbing through the trees and voices passed him perhaps a quarter mile away. He stopped and flattened himself against a tree, listening. One of the voices came to him loud and clear in the swinging, lilting French of a native Haitian. It seemed to be giving some kind of order. A military order. Fine. The Haitian military were to be avoided, yes, but not feared as hidden enemies.
The ground began to slope upward beneath his feet and ahead of him he could see a huge and curiously gnarled tree that had been included in his briefing as a landmark. Another hundred yards, then, and he would be at the mouth of the mountain cave whistling to be let in. Damp moss cushioned his footfalls. Through years of practice in silent skulking he avoided twigs that might snap beneath his feet or branches that might brush and rustle against his body, and he came swiftly to the cave mouth like a tiger in the night.
He blended into the darkness of a leafy bush and looked at the narrow crevice in the rock. It was almost concealed by trailing vines and clumps of shrubbery, and if he had not known where to look the chances were he might not have noticed it. If it opened up into a cave of any size within the mountain it would be a good hiding place for a band of outlawed patriots. Just as good for a band of thieves. Or cell of Communist agents. It was too bad that AXE had so little information on this bunch that called itself The Terrible Ones. They could be anything but what they said they were. Dedicated Dominicans? Maybe. He hoped so. In his mind’s eye he saw a company of toughs, rebels of the Fidelista type but maybe a little more pro-West, hard as nails and very likely none too scrupulous, all armed to the teeth with submachine guns and machetes.
And also, apparently, invisible.
Nick slunk back further into the concealing bush and stared. intently into the darkness. His eyes roved over rock and crevice, foliage, tree trunks and branches, and saw nothing that could possibly be a man on silent watch. Insects scurried through the leaves and the distant shouts still rang out, yet there was no sound of a human presence nearby. Nevertheless he sensed that there was such a presence. And at the same time he did not feel that curious prickling at the back of the neck that was the sign of his danger-instinct at work. This was normal. Probably Paolo the Terrible was waiting in the cave as promised and would emerge on signal.
Nick whistled softly. It was a bird call of the islands, not the radio chirruping call but a long, melodious sound that rose and fell like the voice of a wild bird in flight. He waited for a moment and then mouthed the second part of the call, a tricky little variation straight out of Jean Pierre’s intimate knowledge of Haitian wildlife. Then he listened.
The first call came back to him from the recesses of the rock crevice. Then the second, muffled by foliage and rock but unmistakably right. Nick tensed as leaves rustled and a thin dark shape blocked the opening in the rock and stood there silently. He could see little but a blob of extra darkness and something that looked vaguely like a cowboy hat or maybe a sort of sombrero and a suggestion of booted and trousered legs.
“Not too late for those who seek their friends,” Nick whispered back.
“It is late for honest travelers,” a low voice whispered in soft Spanish.
“Who is it that you seek?”
“Paolo.”
“Ah. You have found the one you look for, if you have the axe.”
So far so good. He had the axe, all right, a tiny tattoo on his inner elbow, though Paolo knew nothing of that.
“It will be at your disposal,” he murmured into the night, and the code exchange was ended. All the right things had been said and now it only remained to follow Paolo through the crevice into the cave. Yet a growing sense of unease made him hesitate. There was something odd here. And the idea of going into a dark cave with a stranger was not one that appealed to him. Especially If there were other strangers inside with some dark plans of their own.
He glanced about him, listening intently. The only sounds were far away. If there were watchers near they were silent ones indeed.
The dark shape stepped aside from the entrance to the cave.
“Enter, then,” the low voice said.
Nick took a slow step forward and silently slid Wilhelmina from her holster into his hand.
“Turn, please,” he said softly. “You go first into the cave.”
He heard a low snort. “You are afraid?” the low voice asked.
“I am cautious,” he answered. “Move, please. I do not wish to stand out here and talk all night.” The aching fingers of his left hand reached for the pen-shaped tube in his upper pocket.
There was an Irritated intake of breath, and then, reluctantly, “As you say.”
“Your back toward me, now.”
“But naturally, cautious one.”
The figure turned and disappeared into the crevice.
Nick followed quickly, in one swift and silent bound. He stood sideways in the opening, Wilhelmina poised for action, and flicked the switch on the tiny flashlight tube. Brilliant light flashed around the small hideout.
“Turn that off, you fool!” the voice hissed.
He turned it off and ducked inside, surprised and angry. The cave was empty of people but for himself and the one with the whispering voice. That was as it should be. But the one he had seen in the sharp beam of light was not at all what he had expected.
The tiniest of glowing lights appeared in the other’s hand. There was a movement at the entrance and he saw a curtain of shrubbery and a dark cloth being drawn across the entrance. The one who answered to the name of Paolo reached for something on a rocky ledge and suddenly the small cave was filled with a soft glow.
“Do you want to give everything away?” Nick’s companion said furiously. “Already you people have made enough noise to wake the dead! Did you think you would be pounced upon by bandits when you came in here?”
“I thought many things,” Nick said slowly, “but you, friend Paolo, are the last thing I expected.” He took one step forward and let his gaze travel deliberately down from the ranchero-type hat, over the loose army jacket, over the dirt-stained slacks covering the well-formed legs, and over the battered riding boots. Then he let his eyes travel upward again to scrutinize such shape as he could distinguish beneath the concealing jacket. He took his time; it was an insolent survey, but his anger made him do it. At last he stared into the face, with its hard mouth and cold-slate-colored eyes. And its peaches-and-cream complexion, marred only by the small scar on the lower left cheek.
The eyes stared back at him, flickering over his bearded face and his bloodied clothes.
Nick sighed and sat down abruptly on an outcropping of rock.
The girl gave a short laugh and swept the ranchero hat from her head. Her hair tumbled out from beneath it. It was long and honey-blonde.
“Well?” she demanded. “Have you seen all you wanted to see?”
“Not enough,” he said harshly. “Are you really a woman, or haven’t you made up your mind?”
Her eyes spat fire. “I suppose you expect me to tramp through the mountains in high heels and an evening gown?” She flung the hat away from her as if it were Nick’s head, and glared at him. “Spare me the insults, if you please, and let us get down to business. First we must get your men together— though God alone knows how you plan to do it after all the disturbance you’ve created. What was that all about, may I ask?” She was looking again at the blood on his shirt. “You are hurt, I see. Was there an accident, or were you seen?”
“How nice of you to inquire,” said Nick, putting Wilhelmina on the rock beside him and sliding the back-pack off his weary shoulders. “Who do you think might have seen me?”
“Haitian patrol, of course,” she said impatiently. “No one else comes up here, at least not at night. There is a voodoo superstition about the place. That is why I chose it.”
“No one else?” Nick stared at her. “And it was impossible, was it, for anyone to follow you here?”
“Of course no one followed me,” she snapped, but her cold eyes were worried. “What are you talking about?”
“About someone who was not a Haitian guard and who might even be a friend of yours, for all I know.” Nick watched her carefully while he spoke. “A big man, a little taller than myself and heavier, and dressed in the same sort of fatigues.
Bearded, Latin features, so far as T could see, and a mouthful of broken teeth.” Her eyes widened almost imperceptibly. “And he called me a Yankee pig,” Nick went on. “I don’t mind being called names, but how would he know? I am not wearing my capitalistic, Wall Street clothes tonight, as you may have noticed.”
“Indeed T have noticed,” she said quietly, and her cool gaze swept once again over his darkened, bearded face and his bloodied fatigues. “Where was this man?”
“He was waiting for me at the top of the cliff,” said Nick, “trying his best to kick me into space. I had to kill him, of course. There was no time to exchange pleasantries.” His tone sharpened suddenly. “Who was he? You recognized the description, didn’t you?”
She shook her head slowly. “It is hot an unusual one. Many men these days wear what you are wearing, and many of them have beards and broken teeth. It is quite true that he sounds like a man I know, but I cannot be sure unless I were to see him. And that I suppose is quite impossible?”
“Quite impossible,” Nick agreed. “Perhaps you are just as glad”
“Why should I be?” The slight softening of her features gave way instantly to the tight-mouthed hardness that seemed to be her normal expression. “We asked for help, and if you intend to give it there should be a mutual trust. I will not name a name I am unsure of. When we get to Santo Domingo I will ask about this man. If he is alive, then he is not the one, yes? But if he has disappeared, then I will tell you about him.”
He almost admired her for the moment. She was being so fair and square, so old-school-tie. And perhaps she was even being honest.
“All right,” he said quietly. “Next question. Who are you? You are obviously not Paolo, whom I was led to believe that I would meet. Somebody lied. Was it you?”
“There was no lie!” she flared. “It is no fault of mine if there was a misunderstanding!”
“What misunderstanding?” He almost spat the words at her. “Who and where is Paolo? And who are you?”
She seemed to shrink away from him. Then she drew her chin up defiantly and spat words back at him.
“There is no Paolo. There never was and no one ever said there was. I sent the messages that brought you here. And I did not lie. The name is Paula. Paula! If there was a mistake in the transcription it was none of my doing! Besides, what difference does it make?”
“And what about The Terrible Ones?” he said icily. “You are not going to tell me that a band of freedom fighters chose a woman to do a man’s errand?”
She laughed at him, but there was no humor in her laughter.
“What men? There are few men left to do the errands of a man. I chose myself. Why should I not? I am their leader.”
He stared at her. It seemed to be getting to be a habit with him. But the tiny doubt that had been kindled by the first sound of the whispered voice was growing into a fire of suspicion.
“I see. You are their leader. And what is the male strength of your company? You may as well tell me now; I’ll find out soon enough — if I decide to stay. And, as you said, there should be a mutual trust.” He waited.
She looked at him defiantly. “You know now, do you not? We have no men. The Terrible Ones are women. All of them.”
“And aptly named,” he said, and thoughtfully scratched his chest. The little switch that connected him with Jean Pierre flicked to the Off position. When he knew more, he’d tell, but Papa Hawk was not going to get a blow-by-blow account of his dealings with this hard-eyed woman.
Nick peeled off his bloodied shirt. The sewn-in radio came off with it.
“Well, I’ve had a hard day’s night,” he said. “I don’t know what entertainment you’ve planned for the rest of it, but I’m going to get some sleep. You can keep watch if you think its necessary.”
“But what about the rest?” she said, and he was glad to see that she was looking puzzled. “Surely you will need to make contact with your men?”
“Surprise, surprise,” he said amiably, making a pillow of his shirt and pack and sliding Wilhelmina underneath the bundle. “I’ve had one; now here’s one for you. There are no other men. I am all you’re going to get. Goodnight, Paolo baby, and please turn off the light.”
“You’re what?” She started toward him, her slim body galvanized by fury. “I ask for help, and I get—?”
“Be quiet!” he hissed. His hackles were crawling and he reached for the Luger as he bounded to his feet.
Her mouth opened angrily and he clamped a hand over it.
“I said be quiet!” He cocked his ears and listened. He felt her slight movement and saw that she understood. At least she was quick on the trigger, this bitch of a girl.
There were movements outside. Not loud, not yet close, but coming closer. Twigs crackled and leaves rustled.
“So no one ever comes this way,” he whispered bitterly. “Your friends?”
She shook her head emphatically behind his restraining hand.
“Then keep your mouth shut and turn out the light.”
He released her and watched her swift movement toward the glow on the rocky shelf.
Moves well, he thought to himself, and then the light went out. He crept toward the entrance of the cave and fingered Wilhelmina.
The sounds were soft but distinct. They became careful footfalls, and there were many of them. And they were right outside.
Voodoo on the Rocks
Nick stiffened. There was another sound that was somehow infinitely more menacing than the footfalls of men. It was a heavy, eager panting that swelled into a low growl. A soft voice whispered a command in barely audible Creole. The growling stopped, but the bushes at the outer mouth of the cave began to rustle and snap as though clawed by some giant animal.
The girl sucked in her breath. Nick felt her lips lightly touch his ear. They felt much softer than they looked.
“Haitian dog patrol,” she whispered almost soundlessly. “Usually six men and one dog. If they take us we are finished.”
Nick nodded grimly in the darkness. He knew about the mad dictator’s secret police and the devilish tortures they had devised for their boss’s viewing pleasure. Yet even if he could shoot his way through six armed men, the idea did not appeal to him. It was not only the knowledge that the shots would bring others running that made him hesitate. It was also that he recoiled from gunning down six men who were not necessarily his enemies but soldiers on guard duty. Maybe he could outtalk them, bargain with them…. He dismissed the idea. It was too much of a long shot. His mind worked busily.
The snuffling grew louder and more eager. Nick’s nerve ends tingled unpleasantly.
“I also have a gun,” the girl whispered. “We can shoot them one by one as they come in after the dog. There is only space for one at a time—”
“Hush,” Nick breathed at her. Christ! she was coldblooded, although she might be right. Except that the patrol was hardly likely to stay around to be picked off one by one. Return fire, one to race for help, and they would have had it. End of Mission Treasure. “Too noisy. Last resort.”
“Do you have a first resort?” She sounded scornful and bitter.
He drew her face toward him and turned her head so that her ear brushed against his mouth. There was a lingering touch of perfume on the tiny lobe, and her hair was silky-soft.
“What is the local superstition?” he murmured. “Something we can use?”
She made an impatient little clicking sound and then said softly, “Oh. It is djuba, fear of dead souls returning to snatch the lives of others. But—”
“Ah!” It was one he knew something about, and he felt a glimmer of hope. Anything was worth trying.
The makeshift blackout curtain of dark cloth and shrubbery billowed inward near their feet. The snuffling became a snarl. Nick drew the girl away in a swift and silent movement and felt a pounding in her chest that was oddly pleasing to him. He sensed rather than saw the curtain dropping back into place at a quiet command. Then there was a whispered consultation outside. He could not hear the words but he could guess what was being said.
“I suppose you plan to let them come in here and then you’ll frighten them to death?” the girl whispered, a little too loudly.
“Quiet!” he hissed urgently. “Get as far back into the cave as you can — climb onto a ledge if you can find one. Then keep your mouth shut and your gun still until I fire the first shot. Understand?”
He felt her head nodding against his lips and on impulse he took a quick nibble of soft ear. He grinned to himself at her little intake of breath and pushed her firmly toward the back of the cave.
The snarling started again and something heavy threshed about in the bushes outside. Nick glided swiftly to his makeshift pillow and reached blindly into the pack, cursing quietly at the thing that jabbed at his probing hand. He pulled it out, still sticky as it was, and slipped the knuckle rings over his fingers. Then he padded toward the narrow entrance and squinted through the darkness for the thing that snarled and snuffled near his feet.
He wondered if the dog was on a leash or whether they would let it bound in to chew the living hell out of whatever they thought was inside. Or if they would start yelling at him to surrender and then start pitching in stink bombs or something worse to smoke him out. But he did not plan to wait for their next move.
His lungs filled with the dank air of the cave and his throat worked strangely. AXE’s Department of Special Effects and Editing taught many things to those with the capacity to learn, and Carter was their most accomplished pupil. That was why he was Killmaster, and that was why he was here.
A chilling sound came bubbling up from his larynx, the sound of a soul in the distant reaches of hell, the babble of a creature driven mad by the tortures of the damned. He let it rise slowly and inexorably, listening to the horrors of his own unrecognizable voice with a sort of awe and dimly seeing the thick snout and spatulate paw of a huge hound scrabbling through the covering of the crevice. He edged back against the side wall of the cave, away from the hole but still within reach of it, raised his killing hand in readiness. His voice rose into a babbling howl of tormented laughter.
If I were a dog I would bristle, he thought to himself, and produced a keening note that was terrible to hear. The dog snarled and backed away. Nick raised his voice another notch. It came out in a high-pitched sobbing whine to make the hackles crawl, and the dog’s voice joined his in a duet that would have sounded fearsome in purgatory itself.
Nick paused for breath. The dog changed key and went into a solo of shrill, yelping snarls like those of a terrified wolf at bay. Voices, men’s voices, whispered urgently, and now he could detect the fear in the sharp hissing. He could even distinguish some of the words, delivered in the excited island patois.
“That I tell you, man, he djuba!”
“What, no djuba! Send in dog again, for sound no kill!”
“You mad, fella? That sound, he kill. I go.”
“You stay! So, dog no go in, we use smoke bomb instead.”
No, you don’t fella, Nick said silently, and he began to whistle. It was an unmelodic but imperative call, pitched so high that only the most acute of human ears could hear it at all, but he knew that the dog could hear. The snarling outside broke into a series of hesitant yaps and then became a little whimper. Shrubbery rustled again. Nick whistled on seductively.
“See dog?” he heard. “He go in now, no fear!”
The dog’s massive head and shoulders thrust their way in and the great nose snuffled near Nick’s feet. He backed away slowly, letting the dog come in after him. It was growling again, now, and the small gleam of torchlight that filtered through the opening showed a great spiked collar around its neck with a loosely held leash attached to it.
Nick stopped whistling and leapt backwards to land in a crouch facing the animal. The dog snarled viciously and flung itself at him, its jaws open to show rows of huge bared teeth.
Nick howled again and struck out savagely with the clawed hand that had already ripped out a man’s belly. Dogs were not his favorite victims, but if there was to be a sacrifice it had better be the dog. Hot breath fanned his face and two thick front legs slammed against his shoulders. Nick went down, cursing to himself, his steel claws raking the empty air above his head. The damned beast was enormous but it was fast, and in the treacherous darkness Nick had miscalculated his thrust. A wet muzzle thrust itself into his face and jaws snapped at his throat. He flung himself sideways and raked the claws across the slavering muzzle as hard as he could. The dog screamed and he slashed again at the side of the head, feeling the claws ripping deep through coat and skin and flesh.
The animal made an indescribable sound of agony and twisted itself around to double back the way it had come. Nick let it go. He heard the girl gasping behind him but he had no time for her now except to hiss—”Don’t move!” and then he made the bubbling wail come welling up through his throat. There were shouts outside and some thudding noises as though bodies had fallen from the impact of the dog’s wild onrush, but he had to go on with his act until he was sure he had routed them. He stalked slowly toward the opening in the rock where the bushes still quivered and rustled, and as he walked he made the sound come up gradually as though it were reaching out toward them. Then he halted at the entrance and forced a weird, whinnying dirge from his throat. If they knew their djuba well, they’d know what was supposed to happen next.
Nick stopped briefly and gathered breath. There were wailing cries from outside that were almost as blood-curdling as his own. A voice screamed out: “Oh, de dog, de dog! Look at him head! Ain’t no human fella made them marks!” Running footsteps thudded away into the night.
“So nobody said you hired to fight only human fella! You come back here….” The footsteps faded out and so did the voice. Its owner was still outside, Nick judged, but not happy in his work.
“I throw grenade!” someone else called bravely, from something of a distance.
“No you not throw anything! Grenade not kill djuba, you makeprayer sign instead!”
Nick laughed. It was an almost human sounding laugh, but not quite, and it started as a chuckle and rose into a cackle of fiendish, unholy glee, like the cry of a hyena in league with the devil. Yelps and snarls retreated into the distance, and then more running feet followed the first in sudden little bursts of frantic energy. High-pitched yowls of fright went with them. The pain-maddened dog still cried out its agony somewhere in the night.
Nick paused again and braced himself for one more chorus.
The djuba was said to mourn its own death, moan a mock lament for its victim, cackle with triumph, and then cry out again with the bubbling, questing sound that meant it was ready for more evil sport. Well, the dog wasn’t dead, it seemed, so the djuba was justified in having one more howl.
He gave it his all. When the last tremulous wail died away he stopped and listened intently. Not a sound. Not even the distant howl of a lacerated dog. With infinite care he moved out into the darkness. There was nothing in his line of vision;, nothing stirred.
The deep sigh behind him startled him until he remembered the girl. She stirred behind him and he heard the faint susurration of cloth against rock.
“Not yet,” he murmured. “Got to be sure first. But as long as you’re up, bring me my shirt.” For some reason he had lapsed into English, but he was scarcely aware of it until she came up silently beside him and said, “Here’s your damned shirt.” He peered at her in surprise as he maneuvered the sleeve past the claw.
“What’s the matter?”
“The matter!” She made some sort of sound that might have been a stifled curse. “What are you, some kind of animal?”
He buttoned up briskly and stared at her dim form. No doubt she would have found him more human if he had killed the lot of them.
“Yeah, I’m a St. Bernard on rescue duty,” he growled softly. “Now shut up and keep still until I tell you you can move.”
She may have had some whispered comment to make but he did not wait to hear it. He lay flat on his belly and slowly wormed his way out through the crevice, more like a sinuous reptile than a shaggy dog, hugging the ground-shadows until he was well out in the open. Then he stopped and tuned all his senses in to the smells and sights and sounds of the surrounding night. For moments he lay there, ready with gun and claw for anything that might happen. But nothing happened, and very instinct told him that there was no immediate danger. He waited for another couple of minutes, cocking his ears and peering about in all directions, then rose silently and stepped back into the cave with a reassuring chirrup of sound.
Once inside he flicked on his pencil flashlight and swung it around the hollow space. If at all possible they must remove all traces of human occupancy. The girl watched him.
“You don’t think you’ve chased them away for good, do you?” she said.
“No, I don’t. We’re leaving here. Get that cloth thing away from the entrance, and anything else you happen to have lying around.” He picked up his pack and her hat as he talked and, flashed the small light over the floor. It was hard soil and rock, and he could see no sign of prints. On a natural shelf in the cave he found a rucksack, a small battery lamp, and an even smaller flashlight. He put the last two into the rucksack and joined the girl at the entrance. She had the cloth down and she was rolling it up in a swift, fluid motion.
“You have any ideas about where we should go from here?” he murmured.
She nodded, and he realized suddenly that he could see her face. Outside the first light of the false dawn was beginning to rim the sky. They would have to get away from here in a hurry.
“We’ll go where I was going to take you later anyway,” she said. “Later, when we’d discussed how to move your men and made our plans.” Her voice sounded harsh and bitter, but completely unafraid. “There’s a village called Bambara where I have friends. They will give us shelter, if we get there. Also they have information for us, and there is something that I meant to show you after we had talked about it. That is one reason why I asked you to meet me here in Haiti.”
He was glad there was a reason. So far it was a mystery to him. “We’ll still talk about it,” he said evenly. “You’ve got plenty to explain. But let’s get away from this place first. I’ll take that.” He reached for the blackout cloth and took it from her to thrust it into his pack. The remaining piton-claws were stashed inside.
Nick raised his own clawed hand to show the girl.
“Do you want one?” he offered. “It may be more useful than your gun.”
She recoiled from him and almost spat her answer.
“No thank you!”
“All right, all right,” he said mildly. “Don’t shout. Here’s your hat.” He crammed it unceremoniously over her head. “Tell me where we’re heading so I can go first.”
“You can follow me,” she said crisply, and was out of the cave door in one swift, noiseless movement.
Nick fumed beneath his breath and followed, slinging both packs over his shoulders and padding out after her like a shadow.
She kept close to the cover of thick trees and bushes and glided on silently like some lithe and graceful cat. There was no hesitancy in her movements but Nick could see she was alert to all the pre-dawn sighs and sounds. Their route led downhill and through the outskirts of the grove of trees he’d traveled through before, then branched off to follow a singing stream that wandered erratically between thick clumps of flowering shrubs whose strong, sweet scent was almost sickening.
The noise of the brook was bothering Nick. Its splashy chuckle deadened the sound of their progress, true, but it would do the same for anyone else. He looked uneasily about him. His neck was prickling again. The dim light, fading again into the darkness before dawn, showed nothing but brook and tall trees and thick, unmoving foliage. But he was sure there was something. He slowed and looked over his shoulder. And he heard the low growl that rippled into a snarl and then became a chilling howl. It was not behind him. It was in front, and so was she…
He was already running when he heard her startled gasp and saw her slender body falling beneath the onslaught of the huge animal shape. His long legs carried him forward in swift leaps and bounds as she rolled over and hunched her shoulder against the snapping jaws. Still running, he swung his right foot forward in one mighty football kick that landed heavily against the beast’s rib cage and booted the snarling thing free of her body. There was a sound of tearing cloth but he could not stop to see the damage. He leapt over her sprawled figure and met the animal virtually in mid-flight. This time he would not miss— He brought the claws down brutally against the creature’s face and raked them over the eyes, digging in as deeply and viciously as he could. The dog screamed terribly and dropped. Nick kicked again so that its underside, its muscles jerking spasmodically, was vulnerable to his final thrust. He slashed the body from spiked collar to lower abdomen with all his strength and then stepped back, fighting down nausea and ready to strike again if the enormous mastiff still showed signs of life. That it had lasted this long was incredible. And appalling.
But it twitched convulsively and died before his eyes.
He breathed deeply and turned away, noting the small pool formed by the stones in the brook, realizing that the dog had come here to lick its wounds and die. He should never have let it out of the cave and in agony. But he had.
He turned toward the girl. She was on her feet and shaking visibly, and there was horror stamped across her face. Nick reached for her with his clawless left hand and gently took her arm.
“Did he hurt you?” he asked softly.
She shivered. “No,” she whispered. “He only — he only—”
She stopped, shuddering. Nick pulled her around so that he could see her shoulder. The jacket was ripped and there was a deep scratch on her upper back, but it was relatively minor.
“How horrible,” she murmured. “Horrible.”
Nick gave up his inspection of her back and swung her round to look her in the eyes. She was staring past him at the dog. It seemed to him that there was no fear in her, only pity and revulsion. “Why does it have to be like this?” she whispered.
It was no time to remind her that she’d been all for shooting down the whole patrol. Nick touched her cheek softly.
“Honey,” he murmured, “I hate it, too. But his name isn’t Paolo, and we have a job to do. Do we still keep following the stream?”
She shook her head. “We cross it soon and make a westward turn.”
“Good. Are we likely to run into any more patrols?”
Again the shake of the head. “No. We have passed the point where we should meet them.”
Nick nodded and turned away from her. With some difficulty he picked up the great, bloody shape of the dog and lugged it to the brook. He dropped it into the swiftly flowing waters beyond the quiet pool and went back to the girl.
“Let’s go,” he said. “And this time, let’s walk together.”
She nodded.
They walked on, listening for sounds of pursuit that never came.
It was an hour before they reached the little village of Bambara. The first cock crowed as they tapped on a window, and a pink glow tinged the mountaintop.
A door opened and they went in. Exclamations, greetings, offers of food which they declined, and then they were together in a barn smelling of sweet straw.
Nick reached for her almost reflexively. It was good to hold a woman in one’s arms after a long day.
She pushed him away roughly and crawled into the farthest corner of the straw.
“Stop that! If you were the posse of men I asked for I’d sleep with every one of them if I thought it would do any good. But you’re not, so leave me alone.”
“All right, Paolo,” he said drowsily. “It was only a thought.”
“The name is Paula”
“Prove it some time,” he murmured, and drifted into sleep.
Chinese Puzzle
Dr. Tsing-fu Shu shivered in spite of himself. He felt nothing, but contempt for native superstition, and yet the low throbbing of the drums made his flesh creep. Usually they did not begin until nightfall on Saturday, but today they had started before noon. He wondered why. Not with much interest, but he wondered. He was annoyed by their effect on him, and he was annoyed by his own complete lack of progress. Two full weeks in this stone labyrinth and his work crew had found nothing. It was most unfortunate that he had to operate with so few men and that they had to be so very cautious. But the Citadelle was one of the wonders of the world, and its very prominence as a tourist mecca presented great advantages. Inspiration alone would suggest it as the hiding place of either materials or men. Then, too, it was deserted at night, so that while great care must be exercised during the daylight hours there was no need for excessive caution at night.
He turned down a passage he had not explored before and played the bright beam of his flashlight along the walls. From somewhere beyond them he could hear the careful scraping sounds of his own men at work, searching the underground storehouses and dungeons for— He was not even quite sure what he and they were supposed to look for. Maybe it would be in packing cases left openly among the old garrison supplies, or maybe it would be in brass-bound trunks in some secret place.
Tsing-fu Shu probed the walls with his narrow fingertips, and cursed. He had nothing to go on but one slender clue, and it wasn’t enough. The scraping, scratching noises of his work crew trying to find some hidden compartment in the thick stone walls sounded aimless, futile. Fortunately they could not be heard by the tourists who even now were tramping and gawking overhead, oohing and ahing at the spectacular view from the battlements. Strange, he thought, how the pulsation of the drums made itself felt even through the massive walls.
The stone was slippery beneath his searching fingers, but it was as solid as mountain rock. It did not swing inward at his touch, as he daily — and nightly — prayed it would, nor were there any rings to pull or bolts to slide back and reveal a hidden chamber. He went on with his search, slowly and meticulously, letting his prying fingers wander over every flaw in the smoothness and investigating each protuberance and crack.
Time wore on. The drums still pulsed and Tsing-fu Shu still searched. But now the monotonous rhythm was beginning to pound at his nerves. He began to think of the sound as coming from a great, bloody heart beating within the Walls, for he had read Poe as a student in the States, and it was becoming unbearable. His irritation and frustration rose. Two weeks of nothing! The fat one in Peking would be most displeased.
He turned a corner into another corridor and cursed again, this time out loud. He was back again in a part of the dungeons he had searched only the day before, and he had not even realized where his steps were leading him. A thousand curses on this devil’s labyrinth.