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Chapter Eleven
Opium is nothing more than the dried milky
juice obtained from incisions in the unripened
capsules of the opium poppy. And Turkey has no
corner on its growth, but is reported—at least med-
icinally—to produce the finest grades. A perennial
herb, the poppies range from white to purple.
Yellowish-brown in color when dried, the opium
itself has always had numerous beneficial
purposes, but it is also smoked through the
bulbous and ornate water pipes that look so inno-
cent in photographs or films of the Middle East
and the Orient. I'd known men who'd tried it, and
to a man they had all become slaves of the flower
—their health, their minds. and their spirits de-
generating into the abyss of addiction. As I walked
through the lamp-lit narrow streets, past the clos-
ing rug and pottery stalls, the scent of rotting gar-
bage in the cool evening still assailing the nose, I
was not looking forward to Honey River. If my
pursuit of Irania took me from the main floor to
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the opium den itself, there would be that distinct
faint smell magnified perhaps dozens of times pro-
portionate to the number of users who sucked at
the bitter, acrid smoke, their lips, their lungs draw-
ing in a grisly substitute for the real world through
the curling pipe stems.
It was nearly 9 PM, and the hours since Nreha's
death had been spent in preparation. I'd showered
again, selected a white, European-cut suit, black
silk knit tie, white shirtt and black shoes. Tufik had
provided the theatrical makeup I'd wanted. My
skin tinted darker, my hair slicked back and parted
in the middle, and a false, brushy mustache
cemented into place with the habitual dark glasses
seemingly favored by so many Turks, Tufik had to
admit even he wouldn't recognize me. And the lan-
guage of the Turks was something I knew well,
complete to the local idiom.
With a little luck—and Wilhelmina, if needed—
I'd be able to handle the evening without incident,
save for disposing of Golz. I'd never met Golz
beyond that brief glimpse hours earlier during the
abortive rooftop chase, but knew him well by repu-
tation. He was the Soviet equivalent of myself, an
agent who specialized in bloody violence when
needed, a good hand with a gun, with more opera-
tions to his credit than one could correctly count.
But he was more savage. Somehow I'd sensed that
Golz had always enjoyed the killing he did, his call-
ing card an unnatural and unnecessary brutality.
Honey River seemed an unprepossessing place if
ever I'd seen one as I crossed the street to approach
it. A painted wooden sign, the pigment long-faded,
announced the entrance in Turkish, English, and
French, and then—in quotation marks—the word
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"Amusements." A cabaret, dancing girls, a
whorehouse, and an opium den—amusements, in-
deed.
The double doors were hinged back against the
stuccoed interior wall, and a beaded curtain was all
that separated the stairway leading downward to
the noisy-sounding cabaret from the street where I
stood.
I took the stairs slowly. At the base stood the
maitred' cum bouncer, muscles rippling under a
cheap double-knit suit, a large gun bulging under
his right armpit. It fit, for as he gestured I noticed
he was left-handed. As he stepped in front of me, I
said, "I've been away for several years. I under-
stand this is an establishment of many delights. Is
there a table?"
He looked at me closely. I waited, palms sweat-
ing, but my eyes returning his cautious stare. My
gun, I knew, unlike his, did not show. "Any one of
those tables by the dance floor," he answered. "It
is still early. But when we become crowded there
will doubtless be others seated with you." I nodded
agreement and followed the general direction of his
magnum-sird hand.
The air was thick with cigarette smoke, and here
and there the faint, sweet smell of marijuana. A
serving girl came and I ordered a coffee, medium-
sweet. A group of musicians, dressed in faded
native costume, wandered across the dance floor
and squatted at its far corner, their instruments
coming to the ready. Trying not to look obvious, I
glanced around the room. I knew Golz from
photos I'd seen on and off through the years. Ands
if he were indeed among the night patrons at this
moment in the Honey River, he was a superlative
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master of disguise. But then, I thought, there was
no reason to suppose otherwise, my fingers tweek-
ing my false mustache. Irania would not be the fea-
tured dancer—pcrhaps one of the chorus, perhaps
a bar girl, perhaps in the kitchen. But if Golz in-
deed was here, she had to be also. Perhaps, toot she
had found work in the whorehouse, which I pre-
sumed was also up the rickety stairs in the far rear
of the cabaret by the doorway swinging back and
forth from the kitchen. As I glanced about the
room, I noticed too that the bouncer—the left-
handed muscleman by the entrance—was still
eyeing me cautiously. I doffed a toast toward him
when my coffee arrived, and he turned away.
Without warning, the music began—perhaps I
was too long accustomed to western music, be-
cause it unnecessarily startled me. Largely strings
and woodwinds, with percussion from tam-
bourines, the music heightened to a crescendo and
died. The bouncer was apparently the MC as well.
In Turkish first, then quite pleasant-sounding
French,-and then in English he announced, "Now,
for your pleasure, the lithe body of Malana to
dance" Short and sweet. And so, as she vaulted
onto the stage, was Malana.
Her olive skin oiled to a high sheen, she was al-
ready twisting her body to some inner rhythm
before I noticed the music having resumed. Her
black hair a mass of curls, her lips cherry red,
bracelets on her wrists and ankles, and a gold piece
held in her navel, the veils that covered her body
swirled and twisted like dust devils in her hands,
more of the gold coins in a belt at her surging pelvis
and dangling on her forehead, somehow fastened
into her hair. The tinkling of the coins and the bells
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NICK CARTER
that she wore made the feeble accompaniment un-
necessary. Somehow—and she had to perform it
night after night—her dance was total in sincerity
and exuberance. She enjoyed the attention, per-
haps, the dozens of pairs of eyes slowly raping her
in the minds behind them.
As the dance went on the music suddenly
heightened in intensity and six other girls joined
her there on the floor, a more or less careless dupli-
cation of her own movements the obvious intent.
Suffice it to say, their precision did not rival the
Rockettes. Despite the lack of professionalism, my
eyes were immediately riveted to the girl second
from the left—Irania. The description matched her
perfectly.
Unlike the lead dancer, and most of the other
women on the floor, Irania was tall, more western
in height, Her hair dark and curled and her ripe
pling young body clothed like the others, there was
something else unique about her as well. As a danc-
er, she left a lot to be desired. Yet, as her pelvis
twisted and writhed back and forth to the music,
up and down, her loins pushing -outward and
pumping to the excited hoots of the onlookers, it
was obvious to every man there that she had at
least one marvelous talent.
There were no women in the audience, and most
of the men were leaning forward in their chairs.
Perhaps for that reason it took longer for me than
it should have to notice Golz. The facial appear-
ance was wrong, but as the scant light from the
floor caught his eyes I knew it was him—one killer
recognizes another.
His face turned my way and he glanced past me,
apparently not noticing me, but I could have been
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wrong. Golz usually worked alone, or so his
dossier indicated, but to pull down on him and
shoot him there would have been risky business. If
there were a backup man—and considering the im-
portance of his current assignment, that was pos-
sible—l had no idea who the backup man was or
where he would shoot from. In any event, action I
precipitated would lose the girl to me—she could
escape in a matter of seconds. No, I decided. There
was no choice but to sit there, enjoy the dancers,
and wait for Golz to make the opening move.
Already, the place was starting to fill up—ap-
parently many of the patrons were regulars and
knew approximately when the first dance number
would begin. I glanced around the room to see, in
sthe event it became necessary, whether or not es-
cape would be possible through the main entrance.
It wouldn't be. The stairway was crowded three-
deep now with guests waiting for tables.
The muscleman brought two sweating-faced
businessmen to my own table and sat them op-
posite me. I scanned their faces briefly—the one
man had a pronounced thyroid problem, it ap-
peared. I looked back to he was moving.
He was across the floor, his left hand encircling
Irania's arm and starting to pull her toward the
rear of the cabaret before I could stop him. The
pistol in his hand made the identification complete.
Golz invariably carried a pre-War Colt Woodsman
.22 with a much modified Maxim-type silencer
always attached. It was the same gun used to
wound Major Tufik and shoot Nreha. As I started
to rise from my chair, my fingers grasping for the
butt of Wilhelmina the Luger, I could see Golz
finally make me as well. The Colt in his hand
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wrong. Golz usually worked alone, or so his
dossier indicated, but to pull down on him and
shoot him there would have been risky business. If
there were a backup man—and considering the im-
portance of his current assignment, that was pos-
sible—l had no idea who the backup man was or
where he would shoot from. In any event, action I
precipitated would lose the girl to me—she could
escape in a matter of seconds. No, I decided. There
was no choice but to sit there, enjoy the dancers,
and wait for Golz to make the opening move.
Already, the place was starting to fill up—ap-
parently many of the patrons were regulars and
knew approximately when the first dance number
would begin. I glanced around the room to see, in
sthe event it became necessary, whether or not es-
cape would be possible through the main entrance.
It wouldn't be. The stairway was crowded three-
deep now with guests waiting for tables.
The muscleman brought two sweating-faced
businessmen to my own table and sat them op-
posite me. I scanned their faces briefly—the one
man had a pronounced thyroid problem, it ap-
peared. I looked back to he was moving.
He was across the floor, his left hand encircling
Irania's arm and starting to pull her toward the
rear of the cabaret before I could stop him. The
pistol in his hand made the identification complete.
Golz invariably carried a pre-War Colt Woodsman
.22 with a much modified Maxim-type silencer
always attached. It was the same gun used to
wound Major Tufik and shoot Nreha. As I started
to rise from my chair, my fingers grasping for the
butt of Wilhelmina the Luger, I could see Golz
finally make me as well. The Colt in his hand
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crazed with heat. I couldn't bring myself to gun
him down. And Golz was disappearing up the
stairway to the brothel and opium den, his retreat
through the kitchen cut off now by the panicking
crowd of cabaret guests jamming through that sin-
gle swinging door in an attempt to escape the gun-
play.
As the muscleman lunged toward me, I side-
stepped, my right foot tripping him, the butt of
Wilhelmina crashing down on his neck. He fell and
rolled onto his back, the pistol's impact apparently
doing nothing to the bulging roll of muscles sup-
porting his head. I tried one more gambit. If that
failed, I'd shoot—there was no time for a pro-
longed fight and one I'd likely lose. As he started to
his feet, lashed out with my right knee, the impact
against his rocklike jaw almost crippling me. The
blow jolted him backward and I lashed out with
my left foot and caught him in the necke The big
man collapsed in a heap at my feet, his hands
clutching his windpipe. If he were going to die from
the kick he'd already be choking to death. It
looked as though I'd just winded him. But I'd
stalled him enough to get after Golz.
By the time I fought my way past the overturned
tables and panicked musicians and dancing girls to
the base of the stairs leading to the floor above,
Golz and Irania were out of sight. I took the stairs
two at a time, coming to a dead halt at the top.
Peering across the floor, I could see almost noth-
ing. The room was clouded in the acrid smoke of
the opium, and there was the smell of hashish as
well. What light there was—clouded over—was
dims and it was hard to see three feet ahead of me
with any clarity.
There were still six rounds in Wilhelmina, so I
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left the magazine as it was. My body in a crouch, I
moved out across the wooden floor. On both sides
of me, Oophouse fashion, the smokers lay in vari-
ous states of semiconsciousness, occasionally the
sound of their laughter or tears filtering to my ears
across the veil of smoke. There were young men
and old ones, faces smooth and ones lined with de-
spair—but the eyes were all the same as I drew
near, then passed. The floorboards creaked be-
neath my feet, but I crept onward.
For an instant I detected a flurry of movement at
the far end of the long, narrow room—perhaps one
of the addicts moving, perhaps Golz and the Gypsy
girl. There was no way to be certain. What light
there was seemed to be concentrated in the far end
of the room, the result a glare on the hazy air that
further impaired vision. Golz would have that light
at his back and be better able to see me. I ran what
else I remembered of his file through my head.
where did I recall his using poison with the small,
forty-grain slugs the Woodsman pistol fired. I'd
have to risk a possible wound. Perhaps with the
smoke, the girl twisting in his arm, his
marksmanship would suffer and a hit—if I took
one—wouldn't prove instantly fatal.
I rose to my full height, Wilhelmina clamped at
my side. my finger inside the trigger guard.
"Golz!" For an instant, nothing, then the whistle
of a silenced gunshot past my ear, and then a sear-
ing pain across the left side of my neck. I fell to the
floor, the feigning of death my only chance to draw
Golt out.
I heard the noise of the coins and bells Irania
wore. Not daring to lift my head, at the edge of my
vision I could see movement, clearly now. The
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THE TURKISH BLOODBATH
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small, bare feet of the woman, then a pair of dark
men's shoes. My right arm was outstretched, the
pistol still clutched in my hand. There wouldn't be
time for a second shot if I missed. In one nash of
movement raised my eyes and lined the pistol on
the swarthy, Slavik face behind the gun leveled at
my head. The distance was perhaps seven yards.
My finger twitched against Wilhelmina's trigger—
in my mind the events were in a sort of slow mo-
tion. The explosion of Wilhelmina's unsilenced,
full-charge 9mm in the small room was deafening.
Golz's face disintegrated and his body new back-
ward. t drew myself to my feet. The Gypsy girl
Irania was standing there, not six feet from me
now, her face twisted in fear. I walked toward her
and she screamed. "No! Leave me alone! Help,
someone!" She lashed out at me, her nails coming
toward my eyes.
With my left fist I did the only thing I could. I
caught the tip ofher chin, and then gathered her up
in my arms as she collapsed unconscious toward
the floor. I bent over and pulled her limp body
onto my shoulder in a fireman's carry, and started
down the length of the room. The addicts were still
unmoved, perhaps not even detecting the noise of
this world, their minds far off somewhere in a
world more of their liking. Through the bead cur-
tain at the end of the room was the whorehouse.
Men and women, in various degrees of nakedness,
lined the walls as I walked past, this room dimly lit
like the room used by the addicts, more eyes
though on the Luger in my right hand than the girl
over my left shoulder. One of the women in the far
corner of the room was holding a cat-o'-nine-tails.
I didn't bother wondering why. As I transferred my
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gaze to her for an instant, she dropped the whip
and cowered back against the wall. At the end of
this room was a doorway. I kicked it open, then
pushed a man wearing only a shirt through the
doorway ahead of me. There were no shots, so
Golz had apparently not had a backup man on the
exit. I shoved the half-naked, balding, and pot-
bellied man back through the doorway and side.
stepped into the shadows, then took the edge of the
wooden stairs down toward the alley. Rats skit-
tered underfoot as I moved toward the street.
Across the narrow way I could see Tufik. He
spotted me and I waved my pistol in recognition,
then shoved the gun out of sight. I crossed the
street, assuming the unconscious girl with her tin-
kling bells and jingling coins would still draw less
attention than my gun, and dumped her through
the passenger door onto the floor of the backseat,
then threw a raincoat over her. I slid into the front
seat. Despite his left arm being in a sling, Tufik
himself was behind the wheel of the Mercedes,
"Is she dead, Nick?" the major queried.
"No, but I'll tell you one thing—that girl's got
one hell of a glass jaw," I said.
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Chapter Twelve
There was a bare-bulbed desk lamp glaring in
her black eyes. "I don't know what you are talking
about," Irania insisted, looking a bit ridiculous sit-
ting there in her veils and bangles, the latter jin-
gling each time she moved, a cigarette dangling
loosely between her fingers, a paper cup of Coca
Cola on the table in front of her. Irania had been
repeating the same thing since she'd awakened in
the back of the car—she'd finally stopped scream-
ing when I'd threatened to hit her again.
Before she'd come to, I'd recounted to Tufik the
gunfight with Golz and his subsequent death. And
now there were four of us in this new room. Tufik
had wisely insisted that my things be moved to a
different hotel under an assumed name to avoid
further contact with the KGB. It was 2 AM and it
had taken time for the major to summon a surgeon
to repair the gunshot wound that had creased my
neck. As the service doctor finished with the last of
the Merthiolate and began applying the dressing, I
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looked across the room at Irania, a glass of
whiskey in my hand, my fake mustache gone, my
coat rumpled across the back of my chair,
Wilhelmina—freshly reloaded—resting in the
holster under my arm. I lit a cigarette and listened
as Tufik asked her again.
"I know nothing about any jewels, I tell you,"
she answered, and with the last word she spat
mockingly at the floor.
Tufik raised himself from his seated position at
the edge of the table and started to bring his hand
down across her mouth. Not that I blamed him,
but I said, "Wait, major."
He looked across his shoulder at me. threw up
his hands in a gesture of disgust, and walked across
to the opposite corner of the hotel living room.
As the doctor finished my neck and I nodded my
appreciation, I walked back across the room to
her. "I do not care about the jewels, the box, or
anything else, Irania," I rasped, my voice tense
with emotion. "Inside the casque, as I told you,
there is a tiny bottle. And now, since you won't
talk, I'll tell you what is in that bottle." I looked
across my shoulder to Tüfik. He shrugged, and I
went on.
"Now, Irania," I said quietly, trying tosound
patient. "And, dammit. take that bored-to-death
look off your face and listen to me, girl!" I
shouted. "Inside that bottle is a germ, a germ a
Russian scientist—a man who used to work for the
Nazis and who is still loyal to the Nazis—de-
veloped in a Soviet laboratory. That germ will
make hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of
people turn into madmen, killers, butchers. And
while they rampage and destroy, their blood will
slowly Start to boil inside their brains and their
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THE TURKISH BLOODBATH
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bodies will start to burn up and they'll keep killing
until the fever from that same germ kills them. And
the germ will spread all over Istanbul, all over Tur-
key, into the Orient, back into Europe, perhaps as
far away as England. And one of those insane
killers that the germ will have made sick might
push the red button on a missile and start a nuclear
war. and that would destroy the whole world—and
you along with it, dammit! We'll even pay you if
you tell us! Now—where is the casque?"
I was waiting for one of the two predictable an-
swers: either that she didn't know what I was talk-
ing about—and there was always that possibility
that she was telling the truth—or the more likely
answer, "How much?" But she surprised me, so
much so that t realized that under the ridiculous
harem-girl outfit and the makeup and the cheap,
gawdy jewelry there might really be lurking in her
some semblance of a soul.
She simply said, "Holy Mother of God," and
then as if in apology to Tufik, a devout Moslem, as
earlier discovered, "lirn a Christian," she
added, then shrugged.
I turned to her and lit another cigarette for my-
self, then absently offered one to her. "Where is
She took the cigarette—hers had burned out in
her fingers. "In the mosque not far from the rail
station. I can show you."
I sat down heavily, and realized suddenly that I
hadn't slept for a long time, that my left shoulder
still ached badly. Carrying Irania on it hadn't
helped. And I found myself wondering what she
looked like without all the gimcrack that semV
covered her.
I turned to Tufik. "When can we get it, major?"
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"Not until mid-morning; after the early prayers
and the worshippers thin out. And you cannot get
it."
"l must, major—but I've got no objection if you
go along."
"That is a deal, then. I'll take charge of the girl."
"Please, can I stay here?" I turned and noticed
her again, leaning slightly forward in the
overstuffed chair, het eyes tired and slightly plead-
ing.
"It's up to you, Carter," Tufik said.
I turned to face her again. "If you'd like, Irania.
Why don't you use the bathroom and take a
shower.... I'll see what I can do about finding you
a robe or something." Then, turning back to the
major, I said, "Can you bring something tomorrow
for her to wear?"
"Of course," he snapped, then, his face creasing
into a grin, he added, his hand touching the
doorknob, "and you can both relax tonight. I have
guards on every floor, the doors to the hotel are
closed by my order, and there are guards on the
roof and along the fire escape—and two of my best
men are at your door."
It seemed he was also giving me a subtle re-
minder that, despite our friendship, he wanted no
infidel crashing a mosque without him along for
propriety's sake.
"I'll see you at nine-thirty or so?" I asked. He
nodded and went through the doorway. I heard the
lock click behind him.
I turned and saw that Irania was gone. A second
later I heard the sound of the shower running. I
fetched a robe from my suitcase and stuck my head
inside the bathroom doorway. "Is that you, Nick?"
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Her voice somehow seemed to sound younger as
the water washed the evening's memories from her
body.
"Yes. I brought you a robe. Anything else?" I
added.
"Would you—" she paused, then went on.
"Would you like to have me wash you?"
I stood there a moment, stared at my unshaven
face in the mirror, my dirt-smudged clothes, then
turned and looked at her face staring at me from
around the edge of the shower curtain, steam rising
already from the hot water.
"Why not?" I whispered. She drew her face back
behind the curtain as I stripped, dropping my
clothes on the tiled floor. I put the lid down on the
toilet and set my gun there—a step away from the
shower if I needed it. I didn't trust other people to
guard my own life, even Tufik's guards—perhaps
that was why I was still breathing.
I stepped into the shower, the hot spray thou-
sands of tiny needles against my face and chest. I
wiped the water from my eyes with my hands and
looked at her. I'd been right—there was something
exquisitely beautiful beneath the cheap clothes and
the clumsy makeup. Her eyes—black as burning
coals—were the largest I'd ever seen, the shape of
the eyelids lightly lifting at the corners—perhaps
some long-forgotten oriental influence. Her
cheekbones were high and just prominent enough
to highlight the softness of her face. Most men
would have said her mouth was too big. I tested it,
the water splashing down on us, the soap on her
betiy slithering against my loins. No, her mouth
was perfect.
As she stepped back and took the soap in her
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hands and began to wash my chest, I could watch
the droplets of water touching, then melting away
from her breasts. They were extraordinarily full.
The nipples were coppery colored and erect, espe-
cially as I brushed the back of my hand across
them. She knelt in front of me and with un-
imaginable gentleness began soaping my abdomen
and then my testicles. I motioned to help her back
to her feet, but she stayed where she was, her hands
rubbing the soap on my feet and legs. As she
reached behind me, I dropped to one knee there as
the shower sprayed on us, tiny beads of water gath-
ering like pearls at the tips of her eyelashes.
I wrapped my arms around her and brought her
face up to mine, my right hand straying to caress
her left breast. I kissed her again, her arms entwin-
ing about my neck, her neck now resting in the
crook of my left arm. I bent to kiss her throat.
Her young woman's laugh of happiness
murmured in my ear.
We both stood up, my hands pressing the curve
of her back against the slick tiles of the shower
wall. t felt her hand at my groin, felt something
uncontrollable happening to us both. Her back
arched, her abdomen pressing against me, my
hands cupped under the cheeks of her rear. I hadn't
made love standing up for a long time, and but for
her height—nearly that of my own—it would have
been impossible. But in this caset the impossible
didn't take even a little longer..
I didn't know how long we stayed there, but af-
terward we dried each other and went into the
bedroom, sitting and talking by the edge of the
bed, each of us with a glass of whiskey. Somehow
it tasted marvelously warm to me.
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After a time, her glass nearly drained, she asked,
"This bottle of germs—?"
"A virus, actually, perhaps in crystalline form,
but likely a liquid, very dense, but a liquid to keep
it more stable."
"This virus, then," she said, the word coming
hard to her tongue. "What will happen to it after
you find it tomorrow?"
"There are scientists who will analyze it and then
destroy it—it's too horrible to use as a weapon," I
answered, hoping I was right.
"But the Russian man would use it?"
There was a certain simplicity about her that was
becoming more appealing. "Yes, he would use it.
But don't worry, he wouldn't have the chance,
Irania."
She leaned back against the pillows and I laid
down beside her, turning out the light, checking by
feel that the Luger was close at hand. I could hear
her voice in the darkness. I knew she was tired. "It
would really turn good people into crazy killers?"
she asked.
"Yes, Irania," I said, "that is what it would real-
ly do," I heard her turning over. felt her head nes-
tling against my chest, and I put my arm around
hers
We had both been asleep for less than an hour
when I felt her stirring beside me, heard her speak-
ing in Turkish. mumbling and barely intelligible. I
reached out to her and felt her trembling. I put my
arm around her once again. By now, my eyes ac-
customed to the darkness after my brief sleep, I
could see her eyelids moving—Rapid Eye Move-
ment, the dream specialists call it. REM sleep. And
this was a nightmare. Rather than wake her, J
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rolled her body toward me and held her tightly,
perhaps to penetrate the dream and quieten her.
I didn't fall asleep right away, and after a few
moments she was talking to me, and I could hear
her crying, feel the wetness of her eyes against my
right shoulder. "Can I tell my dream?" she asked,
her voice soft, almost like a little girl's.
"Yes," I answered, not looking at her through
the darkness, but staring toward the grayness of
the ceiling instead. It was quiet in thc room except
for the few street sounds from outside.
dreamed that instead of you," she whispered,
"some bad man found the germs—the virus, I
mean. And that he was standing on the Ataturk
bridge and pouring them—the virus things—into
the Bosphorus and that there were men and women
and children all of a sudden starting to beat and
strangle one another right there on the bridge and
that the man who had poured the germs into the
water was standing there laughing. Maybe he was
crazy already and the germs couldn't affect him."
I didn't know what to say to her, so I turned
toward her and kissed her lightly on the lips and
after a few minutes she was asleep again on my
shoulder. I couldn't sleep for a long time after that
—perhaps I was afraid her dream might somehow
come true.
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Chapter Thirteen
Irania was still sleeping, and this time I showered
by myself. As I dried myself and began to dress I
could watch her. The noise I'd made had begun to
cause her to stir, shafts of sunlight through the
blinds catching and highlighting her face. The
whiteness of the sheet caught over her breasts was
a dramatic contrast to the honey coloring of her
complexion, her hair's blackness the richness of
velvet against the white of the pillowcase. I sat on
the edge of the bed as I stepped into my shoes, then
reached across to her face and used a strand of her
hair to brush across her lips. She moved her index
finger across her face as though swatting at the an-
noyance to her rest, then opened her eyes. When
they met mine, she smiled.
"What time is it?" she murmured.
I checked my watch, then answered. "Nine-fif-
teen. I've ordered some breakfast from room ser-
vice. It should be here in a moment. And I'm afraid
it's terribly American. You can use my robe again
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NICK CARTER
if you'd like. Major Tufik should be here in a quar-
ter of an hour with some clothes for you."
"Will I see you again, after you get the casque
back from the mosque?" she asked, clearing her
throat and sitting up, settling the sheet to cover her
breasts.
"Would you like to?"
She smiled at my question, then, without waiting
for more of a response, I said. "I can't very well
leave you here without a place to go. And I don't
suppose the KGB will be terribly fond of you after
last evening. Yes," I said, thinking out loud,
suppose I can con your way into England with me.
Would you like it there?"
"I think so," she answered.
"l think so, too," I said. "Now, why don't you
get that robe on." There was a knock at the door.
Although I assumed it to be breakfast, I wasn't
about to take chances. despite Tufik's guards on
the doorway.
t slipped the shoulder holster on, called loudly,
"Just a minute, please," and pulled my coat on
over it. I'd already checked Wilhelmina the Luger
as I did every morning.
Nothing seemed out of the ordinary when I
opened the door—the same guards Tufik had
posted there earlier to keep the enemy out and to
doubtless keep me in were still there. One of the
guards took the breakfast tray from the waiter and
I nodded and took it in turn from him, tossing a
few coins to the waiter as I did. Irania and I ate
hurriedly, the time for Major Tufik to arrive com-
ing rapidly and both of us quite starved. I hadn't
realized it until then, but I'd had nothing to eat
since breakfast. that previous day.
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THE TURKISH BLOODBATH
123
While we systematically caused the bacon, eggs,
and toast to vanish, Irania gave me the short-
course story of her life. "We were orphans, my
brother and me," she said between slightly more
than ladylike mouthfuls. It seemed that Tarbor's
brother Yeleg had taken the two orphaned children
under his wing when they were but babes-—and it
also seemed he had regretted it ever since. Irania
explained that although stealing was not such a ter-
rible thing for her morally—ignoring that tenet of
the Christianity she'd professed to Tufik and my-
self just hours before—it was her brother, "God
rest his immortal soul," who had had the grandiose
plans for success through theft.
Irania had taught herself to read English, mostly
from religious books the nuns who had taught her
Christianity had left with her. She had spent a year
in their care when as a child she had contracted
meningitis. She clearly felt she owed the sisters her
life. At age ten, she returned to the Gypsy camp,
and had spent the last ten years traveling with
them. Her brother—two years younger—had
always liked automobiles, and the one he had sto-
len the evening of the accident with Dro
Rauffmann's car had been faster than he'd
thought. After the crash, they had quite naturally
helped themselves to the few articles of value
they'd found, but her upbringing with the nuns had
dictated that they could not leave the injured man
unattended. "It was the only Christian thing to
do," she added, not at all conscious of the irony of
her words.
I was starting to delve more into her background
as there came the expected knock at the doore This
time it would be Major Tufik of the Secret Service.
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The major nodded when I opened the door, his
arms laden with several large packages. Tossing
them onto the couch, he grunted, "Here," toward
Irania, then added. "my wife looks very much like
you. Since we didn't have your sizes. she shopped
for you. They should do, I think." Then, dismiss-
ing the girl from his mind, he turned to me and
said, "A change in plans from last night, Nick."
As Irania left the room, her arms hugging the
packages, Tufik lit a cigarette.
I gestured toward the coffee and he nodded that
he didn't want any. Pouring another cup from the
silver pot for myself, then lighting a cigarette, I
asked, "What is the change?"
"It looks as though you get your wish—to go in
alone after the casque. If you as a non-Moslem
cause a disruption in a mosque, we can always
blame you as a heathen. But, on the other hand, as
a Moslem myself in a Moslem government, the re-
sults were t to be involved could be disastrous. Do
you know exactly where she has hidden the
casque?"
I stared into my coffee for a moment, then an-
swered, "Yes, she just told me a few moments ago.
Somehow, she was able to successfully disguise
herself as a boy—using some of her dead brother's
clothes. With her figure, she must have been sur-
rounded by blind men. But, in any event, she hid
the casque under a small bush by a fountain in the
gardens on the far side, away from the mosque
itself. That should make you feel better—and your
superiors—since t won't have to actually do any-
thing in the mosque itself."
"Allah be praised," he said, and sighed.
The major handed me a detailed layout of the
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THE TURKISH BLOODBATH
125
mosque, which I studied as we talked. Tufik and I
arranged that we would leave separately—I to the
mosque by taxi and he taking Irania to our even.
tual rendezvous at a street café at the terminal for
the Orient Express. I went in to kiss Irania good-
bye. Once again I wore a white suit, dark glasses
were in my pocket, and my skin was tinted darker
to disguise my appearance. I'd given up on the
mustache. She turned when I entered the room, her
arms above her head as she fixed her hair, nothing
but a white silk slip clothing her. '41 have to go
now," I said. "You'll leave here with the major,
but I'll rejoin you before noon—that's when our
train will leave."
"Oh, Nick," she moaned, rushing toward me
and coming into my arms.
"Don't worry. I'll be reckless, darling." I kissed
her full on her waiting, slightly trembling mouth,
turned, and walked oute I waved a casual salute to
Major Tufik and made my way past the guards and
down through the lobby. I walked a few blocks to
avotd getting a ringer in a waiting cab, consciously
refraining from hailing the first few cruising cabs
saw. When I felt it was safe, I flagged down an
empty taxi and gave its driver an address two
blocks from the mosque.
The ride was uneventful, save for the incessant
honking of horns and dinging of bicycle bells as we
wove through the congested streets. A lovely place,
Istanbul reminded me Of countless cities its size
around the globe where drivers conscientiously and
cheerfully ignore traffic rules and somehow seem
to survive driving situations that would make a
stuntman cringe.
I paid the driver, walked a block out of my way
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to determine whether or not I had been followed,
then turned in the direction of the mosque. It was
already visible. even blocks away. Its huge dome
dominated the horizon. its minarets defiantly
gesturing heavenward, the several dozen steps lead.
ing to the main entrance from the street level serv-
ing as a cul-de-sac for the street I walked.
I stubbed out my cigarette with the heel of my
shoe and glanced about to see if ltd yet picked up
a tail. Things were going almost too well. I took the
low stone steps slowly, one at a time, through the
tunnel leading to the first landing, then into the
sunlight once again and up the last flight.
The interior of the mosque—as I entered it—was
in stunning contrast to the street. The temperature,
because of the high ceiling and the cool stone walls,
was at least ten degrees lower than that of the out*
side world. I'd removed my shoes as was the cus-
tom, but a second pair of shoes was in my attache
case so I wouldn't be stuck barefoot in case a hasty
withdrawal became necessary.
I threaded my way past the steps leading down
into the sanctuary and along a high hallway, on
one side overlooking the street below through nar-
row windows and on the other overlooking the in.
terior of the mosque, past a waist-high stone
banister.
The dome itself high above and dominating the
mosque's interior was an intricate pattern of
mosaics, with gemstones glittering occasionally in
a passing ray of sunlight through one of the high
rectangular windows. The chanting of the holy
men and the murmurings of the worshippers could
be heard from all sides, the sounds bouncing off
the smooth stone surfaces and creating the effect of
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THE TURKISH BLOODBATH
a whispering gallery or echo chamber.
127
I passed few people there in the hallway, turning
as often as t dared without making myself appear
conspicuous to check that no one was watching.
When I'd walked approximately half the circum-
ference of the mosques a small, circular stairwell
opened before me. Stepping over a velvet rope bar-
ricade, I took the stairs as quickly and as quietly as
I could. A brass door with a modern cylinder dead.
bolt closed fast barred me from entering the garden
at the stairwell's base. Looking up the stairs and
over my shoulder, I reached into my attache case
and withdrew a smalls folded-over leather case—a
lock-pick set. Using a hook-shaped tool, I had the
deadbolt unlocked in less than a minute and a half.
Knowing I was slowing a potential retreat, I de-
cided regardless to lock the door behind me—leav-
ing it unlocked would only attract attention. Turn-
ing into the garden now for more than a cursory
look, I couldn't help being struck by its beauty. A
seeming maze of pathways crisscrossed the neatly
clipped lawns, small shrubs sculpted into ornamen-
tal shapes lining the paths beside marble benches at
close intervals and, near the garden's center,' a
gracefully pluming fountain, the water's tinkling
sound barely audible in the otherwise total still.
ness. High walls surrounded the garden on the
three sides not abutting the mosque itself, but 1
could see no signs of barbed wire or electrification,
and climbing shrubs and vines would afford ample
purchase for me if I needed to scale one of the walls
to escape. Irania had neglected to mention that
there were several shrubs on the mosque side of the
fountain. Assuming that she hadn't used a shovel
to bury the casque, it meant she had dug by hand,
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or perhaps had had the aid of a knife of some sort
—in either case, she couldn't have dug too deeply.
The casque had only been buried the previous day,
so the ground should still look disturbed above
where she had placed it.
I walked the twenty yards or so to the fountain,
looked over my shoulder again—nothing—then
stooped for a closer inspection of the ground sur-
rounding the neatly ranked shrubs encircling the
base of the fountain. There were two likely spots,
so I flipped a mental coin and chose the one to my
left. From the attache case, I extracted a min-
iaturized collapsible trench shovel and at once I
started turning over the dirt. Had there been sod
there, I would have cut it away with a knife for
later replacement, but the ground cover surround*
ing the bushes was little more than sand and gravel-
ly dirt. I shoveled the dirt into a plastic liner in the
bottom of the attache case for quick replacement
and to avoid leaving any more signs of disturbance
than I had to. Going slowly to avoid the slightest
risk of damaging the vial, I was just about to give
up on this first spot and go on to the second when
my shovel blade clanged softly against something,
Working with my fingernails now to scrape away
the dirt above it, I saw the glint of a tiny brass
hinge. In less than a minute the casque was ex-
posed.
Using a small pick from the lock-pick set in the
attache case, had the casque lid opened in a few
seconds—Irania had apparently relocked it or had
never had time to open it. Inside were two strings
of black pearls. Using the edge of the shovel I tried
scratching them and found they were real—ap-
parently Dr. Rauffmann's "mad money." And that
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129
was all I could see in the box. No hidden catches,
etc. Yet, it was obvious just from ballpark measur-
ing that the compartment holding the pearls was
only two-thirds as deep as the exterior of the
casque. I slipped Hugo, my pencil-thin stiletto,
from the sheath up my right sleeve and pried the tip
of the blade between the interior base and side of
the casque. The base started to spring upward. then
popped out. Inside, in a neat compartment, cov-
ered with plastic air-bubble packing, was a glass
bottle, the mouth covered with wax, then leaded
over. And, inside the half-full bottle was a thick,
pale-green liquid—the virus, I presumed.
Setting the casque and the bottle aside for a mo-
ment, I poured the dirt back into the small hole
from the attache case, patted it into place where the
hole had been with the shovel blade, then replaced
the shovel inside the case, keeping out the lock-
pick set. The case still open, I took a zippered
waterproof plastic pouch from the top compart-
ment where I also had my spare pair of shoes. I
placed the vial inside the pouch, nestling it with
Rauffmann's plastic air-bubble packing material
and more of the same material that I had also
brought for the purpose. I slamm«i closed the emp-
ty casque, dropping the pearls from it into my coat
pocket. The value of the pearls—once I could mar-
ket them—would help Yeleg rebuild his own
Gypsy camp and that of his dead brother, Tarbor.
As I started to close the attache case, preparing
to the mosque, I heard a shout I'd thought
was something one used only in the movies: "Kill
the infidel—he defiles holy ground!" I looked to-
ward the direction of the voice—it was at the far
wall opposite the rear of the mosque. More than a
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dozen young men, students by their dress, were
jumping down into the garden, knives and clubs
waving in their hands, looks of murder on their
faces.
I turned to the flanking walls. There, too, bands
of young men, similarly armed, were dropping
from the walls and rushing toward me. It had been
a set up—Rafik, perhaps, whom I'd forgotten
momentarily, or perhaps even the KGB. The me-
chanics of it were simple. Alert radical Moslem stu-
dents that an American infidel, an American spy,
in fact, would be digging in the garden. No, it had
to be Rafik. The KGB wouldn't be secure enough
to use the infidel ploy and be assured of getting the
vial in one piece.
Quickly, I stepped into the spare shoes I had and
slapped the attaché case shut, taking off in a dead
run for the one direction left to me—back toward
the locked brass door. Cursing myself softly under
my breath as I reached the door for having locked
it behind me, I realized too that if I hadn't it would
be likely that more of the radical students would be
streaming through the door as well and have cut
off my one possible escape route. They could still
be waiting on the other side. That thought sent a
momentary chill down my spine. It had to have
been a hastily put-together ploy—I had been fol-
lowed from the motel regardless of my- caution.
When I'd been spotted heading for the garden,
Rafik or one of his agents had made a quick de-
cision to provide an instant army. And, as I
fumbled the hook-shaped pick in the deadbolt
lock, if I didn't get through the door quickly,
Rafik's plan would work. Even with the Luger, I
could not take care of thirty-six armed men quickly
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131
enough to prevent one of them from getting me—
and then Rauffmann's virus would be in Rafik's
hands and the PLO would hold the ultimate weap-
on of terror. And they'd use it remorselessly, I
knew.
The lock clicked and I wrenched the doorway
open, stepping back, my 9mm pistol in my right
fist. There were only three men-—older than the
students—on the other side of the door. All three
were armed with pistols. There was no time to
think, no time to dive for cover. My hand worked
Wilhelmina as fast as she'd fire. I got the first two
before they could loose a shot from their hand-
guns. The third man's pistol discharged just when
mine did. I heard and felt the bullet thud into the
attaché case.
Had it smashed the vial? I couldn't stop to open
the case to check. If it had, I would be the deadly
strain's first victim, and the plague would start here
in Turkey—but it was too late to stop it if the vial
were already smashed. I streaked through the
doorway, my finger pressed to the trigger of the
Luger, and took the steps three at a time. The
screaming of the students, their shouts, their in-
suits, their threats, were all ringing in my ears, be-
hind me and all too close.
I reached the banistered high hallway going the
circumference of the sanctuary. Not able to risk
running headlong into a blind alley, I ran back, re-
tracing my original steps. The pounding of my
heels on the stone floors echoed and reverberated
through the mosque, and in an instant there were
the shouts and snarls of hatred behind me again.
With the whispering gallery effect of the high dome
and the hall, the sound soon became a piercing
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NICK CARTER
cacaphony of brutal noise, deadly noise. And still,
my heart pounding hard in my chest, my throat dry
from the running and the fear, still t could not es-
cape the horror that perhaps that stray bullet had
smashed the vial and that I and everyone around
me were even now dying.
Suddenly, the pattern of screams and howls of
rage changed. Although the echo-chamber effect
played games with the sounds, I suddenly realized
that another pack of men after my life was coming
toward me from the front of the mosque, cutting
off my escape.
I skidded to a stop dead in my tracks. The nar-
row windows leading to the exterior base of the
dome were too narrow for me to pass through and,
once outside, there might be no foot- or handhold
and I would simply plummet to the ground below
—perhaps thirty feet or more. It was grassy outside
and there was a good chance I'd sustain nothing
more than a few bruises—but because of their size,
the windows were definitely out as an escape route.
There was only one Other chance. The hallway was
supported beneath by Roman-type rounded col-
umns at approximately twelve-foot intervals,
which formed between them gently sloping arches.
The arches were heavily ridged, the pillars too
smooth for even a momentary purchase, however.
But the drop was a conservative fifteen feet to the
marble floor below. I'd have to opt for the smooth
pillars and hope that somehow I could friction
against the surface and slow my descent.
The armed mobs of murderous young students
were closing in on me now. Each group stopped in
their headlong dash a few yards from me, slowly
edging toward me now, knowing that I was armed
with a pistol.
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I flashed the Luger from side to side toward
them, and, for a moment, almost as if animated by
one mind, the mobs on each side stopped, edged
back. then started forward again more slowly. You
could read the message in their burning brown eyes
—they'd tear me apart. They were close and I
could hear the murmurings in the crowd—Olf we
rush him he can't shoot us all" and "The defiler
must die." It would have been pointless to explain
to them that I hadn't defiled anything, and that the
reason more than three of them weren't already
dead was because I didn't like shooting at men who
couldn't shoot back, especially men who were the
dupes of someone like Rafik—someone exploiting
their religious zeal only to make fools of them.
Suddenly, a plan hatched somewhere in the back
of my mind—and standing there with the twin
mobs at bay couldn't last forever. I debated
whether or not to fire toward them, but that might
only precipitate a rush rather than fend them off,
and I had no wish to prove them right—I wouldn't
defile their holy place unless I had to. Cautiously,
I edged toward the railing behind me—hearing
someone shout, "He's going to jump!"
My natural reaction was to shout, "Stand back
or I'll fire." And. when I did so in their own lan-
guage, perfectly, it had a greater effect than any
gunfire could have gotten. The majority of the
young men in the surrounding mobs were ap-
parently shocked that I could speak their tongue—
me, the defiler, the infidel—and that I spoke it pet:
fectly, perhaps better than some Of the younger
men fresh from the rural villages could themselves
boast. I took that moment of inaction and used it.
Before I vaulted over the railing, my Luger already
dropping into a side pocket of my coat to give me
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NICK CARTER
a free handt I pulled my belt loose from my
trousers. Wrapping my legs about the pillar below
me, my free hand grasped at the heavy ridges in the
ornamental arch, there was nothing else to do but
drop the attaché case—if the vial broke, they who
were trying to kill me would themselves be killed.
With my left hand I whipped the belt around the
pillar, then notched it closed. My arms as wide
apart as possible on the circumference Of the pillar,
my legs forming the apex of the lopsided. inverted
triangle. I slid down the pillar, the belt and the
weight of my body against it slowing my descent
just enough to break my fall. I dropped the last five
or six feet. Already, some of the men from the
mobs were trying to vault the railing, one falling in
a crumpled heap beside me at the base ofthe pillar.
Others were trying to do what I had done. The rest
started in opposing directions to race to the
doorway of the mosque to intercept me before I
could escape the building. I snatched up my case
and turned, making a long-drop hammer blow
with my right into the jaw of the only one of the
men who had so far slid down the pillar after me,
knocking him out before he could get to his feet.
And then I ran. I reached the steps of the
mosque. About a half dozen Of the zealots were
right on my heels. As I passed the area where the
shoes of the worshippers had been left—the pair
I'd worn originally there, too—I stopped and
whirled on my pursuers. Snatching up the shoes at
random I started pelting them toward the men.
Two of the men started backing off. As a third
broke from the group and rushed me, I lashed out
with Wilhelmina from a fast draw out of my pocket
and brought the gun up in an arc and backhanded
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it across his face, the barrel sounding a dull thud as
it struck bone.
And then I was running again. Now I was des-
perate—l had to find a cruising taxi—the mob was
less than half a city block behind me. We were out
of the cul-de-sac and onto the main street—already
the size of the mob was swelling as the zealots
maintained their shouts that I had defiled their
mosque, killed on their holy ground, and bystand-
ers now were joining them. A taxi was coming
down the street as I ran toward the curb—a passen-
ger in the backseat, perhaps two: As the taxi
crossed in front of me, I jumped onto the hood,
Wilhelmina not two inches from the driver's face
on the other side of the windshield. His windows
were open and I shouted for him to stop or be
killed. Keeping the pistol trained at his gaping
mouth, I slid off the hood and jumped into the
backseat. Had the passengers been American or
Europeans, r wouldn't have abandoned them to
the mob, which might just as easily have tried to
kill them. But they were both Moslems, or at the
least certainly Turkish—businessmen by the cut of
their clothes and the attaché cases they carried.
I gestured with Wilhelmina the Luger. "Out,
now!"
Both men slipped through the opposite passen-
get doorway. shouted, "Slam it hard," and one of
them did. Turning to the driver, the muzzle of my
pistol at his ear, I rasped, "I want to see how fast
this taxi can move. Get me out of here and you're
a free man. Trap me in a cul-de-sac or tie me up in
traffic and I'll shoot your ear off. Got it?"
"Yes, sir . e." he stammeredÄhen slipped the
clutch and the vehicle shot forward with such force
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NICK CARTER
I had to grasp the back of the driver's seat to avoid
being hurled backward across the rear of the cab.
The mob—almost close enough to swarm the tax-
icab a second earlier—now started vanishing in the
growing distance the speeding taxi was putting be-
tween us. My gun still at the driver's ear, I said, "If
it makes you feel any better, I didn't defile the
mosque—in fact, I almost got killed by those luna-
tics back there trying to avoid it."
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Chapter Fourteen
After a few blocks, I ordered the driver to slow
down to more or less normal speeds, though I
didn't really worry about the Turkish police caus-
ing any serious trouble for me. Major Tufik
seemed to be possessed of a startling ability to ap-
ply grease where needed, but there seemed to be no
sense in attracting the law unnecessarily.
Keeping one eye on the driver, I worked up the
nerve to open my shot-through attaché case. The
pouch had a ragged bullet hole through it. If the
vial had been smashed by the gunshot or the fall, it
was too late now to worry. In desperation, though,
( unzipped the pouch and felt insides The cab
driver even turned around when I sighed—my re-
something I couldn't even try to explain. The
*Vial was untouched, the plastic packing around it
'unctured as close as an eighth of an inch to the
lial itself. I rearranged the packing to give the vial
nore protection, then replaced it in the plastic
'ouch, zipped the pouch shut, and replaced the
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NICK CARTER
pouch in the attaché case.
I turned to the driver—we were within walking
distance now Of the terminal where I'd catch the
Orient Express. "My friend," I said, smiling, slid-
ing the Luger into its holster under my arm, "you
don't know how lucky we are. Stop here."
I could see the driver's hands starting to tremble
on the wheel as he pulled over, perhaps thinking I
would shoot him anyway. He'd left the meter run-
ning from when the two Turkish businessmen had
still been his passengers. I fumbled some money
from my trouser pocket and gave him roughly five
times what was on the meter. "Many thanks,"
intoned as I stepped to the curb. He looked back at
me bewilderedly for a moment, then tore away
from the curb so quickly that he almost plowec
right into a delivery truck passing him. A face ther
peered out the window of the truck at me, but um
characteristically of European drivers, instead ot
the trucker stopping to verbally or physically abuse
the cabbie, the truck just sped up and went arounc
the corner. I dismissed the incident from my mind.
Rather than walking directly to the depot, )
backtracked on myself several times before turnins
and heading toward it. I checked my watch. Tufik
and the Gypsy girl Irania should be waiting for me
already. I still had ten minutes before twelve Istan-
bul time, giving me ample time to board the Ew
press before departure. I was setting myself up, ir
a way happy for the turmoil at the mosque. Rauf
fmann and his Nayi friends had been holding back
apparently watching the Americans and the Rust
sians and the Palestinians play games for thc
possession of the vial. Rather than deplete theil
own forces in the warfare that had surrounded
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THE TURKISH BLOODBATH
139
actual locating of the vial. they'd wait and snatch it
from the victor. I felt I'd clearly established myself
as that. Now Rauffmann had to make his move. If
Rauffmann knew anything about me—and there
was no reason to suspect the Nazis didn't have a
relatively complete dossier on me—he would know
that I was eager to meet him. He'd know I wanted
the notes he kept and that I wanted his life. I had
the feeling the Nazis would be only too eager to
oblige as far as the meeting went, at any rate. And
the train itself was the perfect spot. They'd be
watching the depot. They could kill me once I was
aboard the train and steal back the vial and then
jump off the train—likely in Yugoslavia—then get
air transportation from the capitol to almost any-
where in the world, likely South America.
The train depot was in sight as I rounded a cor-
ner. J could see Tufik and Irania sitting at a table in
the open air coffee shop. As I drew closer, it
seemed to me that Irania had grown even lovelier
since I'd seen her that morning. She looked very
western, her body sheathed in a sleeveless black
dress, the ridiculously high heels of her shoes,
straps buckled around her ankles almost as if some
symbol of bondage, and her curls piled on top of
her head. If the round-lense dark glasses she wore
were some attempt to avoid attention. one look at
her, however casual, would make that assumption
impossible. As I reached the table I completed my
survey—tiny gold-pierced earrings, the ones she'd
worn last night even in the shower, a thin, gold
chain around her neck, and a matching bracelet.
I smiled, nodded, then seated myself between
Tufik and Irania. I reflected that if Tufik's wife
were that physically similar to Irania, the major
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NICK CARTER
was indeed an extremely fortunate man.
Tufik eyed the briefcase I held on my lap—and
the bullet hole as well, no doubt.
"Did you
"Yes," I answered. "A few difficulties, but it's
intact."
" 'A few difficulties,' yes. I heard on the police
radio a few moments ago. When I heard about the
riot, the extra police being called in, etcetera, I
somehow guessed you had a hand in it." He lit a
cigarette and held the light while I took one from
my jacket pocket.
"Rafik—at least that seems the logical choice.
He and his men must have followed me despite my
" I interrupted myself and dipped my
care—
cigarette down toward the light he offered. "So
that may mean, despite my care in coming here,
Rafik has also followed me to the depot. But he
may have had it watched all this time anyway."
Irania, despite the dark glasses shading her eyes,
was unable to disguise an expression of fear that
now fretted the corners of her mouth. I reached
over and took the hand she held limply on the edge
of the table and kissed it—nail polish. too, I noted.
"Don't worry, darling," I whispered, then I turned
back to Major Tufik.
"Do you think you can handle both parties if
they arrive—Rafik and the Nazis?" he asked.
"So you realize I'm setting myself up—and what
the balance of my assignment is?"
He dragged heavily on his cigarette, tiny beads
of sweat collecting on his lip just over his
mustache. "Yes, of course I do. I've known since
Kemalla met you at the airport. I only hope it takes
place outside of Turkey."
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THE TURKISH BLOODBATH
141
"Kemalla? Who is Kemalla?' It was Irania
speaking—were the dark eyes turning green, I won-
dered?
• SA very close comrade, Irania. Now. let the ma-
jor and me talk." I turned back to Tufiki and
glanced at the station clock over his shoulder as I
did. I could hear the train starting to pull int ap-
parently a few minutes late.
"What happens if they get you and the vial?"
I pulled off my sunglasses—they certainly
wouldn't disguise me from Rafik, and if Rauf.
fmann had any watchers, I certainly didn't want
them to miss me.
"What. happens," I repeated, "if they get the
vial? The vial. Major, is of little importance, really.
Rauffmann could make more of the virus in a few
hours or a few days, probably. All the vial will do
is give the potential victims a way of concocting a
serum to combat it—but that could take years,
even if the agent can be analyzed effectively to be-
gin with. My director and I realized that early on.
The greater value of my search for the vial, my use
of my own name, not altering my appearance most
of the time I was here, what-have-you, was to draw
out Rauffmann. We need the vial, but only if Rauf-
fmann is eliminated and his notes are brought into
our possession. Even though he has been a loyal
Nazi all these years, I doubt he trusts their party's
goodwill sufficiently to leave an extra copy of the
formula lying around—and the Russians don't
have a copy, either."
understand you've earned a certain rank over
the years, Nick," Tufik said. 'Killmaster,' is it
not? I take it that with Rauffmann—"
I spared him the awkwardness of finishing the
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NICK CARTER
sentence. "You take it correctly." Turning to the
train, I added. "And now I think we'd better take
it on the lamb, as they say—
In the distance, I could hear the rough
equivalent of "All aboard!" intoned in several lan-
guages by the conductor. Major Tufik wordlessly
handed over our tickets for a compartment aboard
the train, and said, then, "I arranged for your lug-
gage and some extra things for the girl to be put
aboard by my men when the train first stopped—
nothing like announcing you even further."
We all stood and the major and I clasped hands
warmly, I'd felt he hadn't been too taken with my
methods, but was amply sympathetic to my cause
—the important thing, after all. "l wish I could say
I'd miss you." Tufik said, smiling.
"I'll bet you say that to all the troublesome A1-.
lied agents...
We both laughed and, taking
Irania's hand in mine and the attaché case under
my arm, she and I ran to the train.
Finding our compartment number wasn't dif-
ficult as we passed along the cars, the pneumatic
screech of the air brakes a constant background
presence. As Tufik had indicated, our luggage was
already there. It was an unnecessary luxury, since
we'd be forced to abandon it when we jumped the
train in Yugoslavia to make our way to the secret
airfield we would use, and from there to London. I
locked the wooden compartment doorway behind
us, drawing the curtains shut as well, then checked
the lavatory and the compartment itself to confirm
that no one had left any surprises for us. There
were air vents leading into the compartment from
the baseboards in the floor—presumably for some
type of forced-air heating. If someone wished to
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THE TURKISH BLOODBATH
143
gas us, they'd have to gas the entire train, and it
was doubtful the heating system was even function-
ing with the temperature as warm as it had been.
There was no air-conditioning. The windows
opened as they should, though I didn't relish the
prospect of being forced to jump out of the window
of a speeding train.
The logical times for an attack from Rauffmann
—or Rafik or the KGB, for that matter—would be
during a passport control inspection or ticket
check. I didn't have great fears about the KGB
having any much greater threat potential for us in
Yugoslavia—the Express was a sort of sanctuary
that was rarely if ever touched, and Yugoslavia,
though Communist, had always been somewhat
notorious about keeping the Russians out of its in-
ternal affairs.
I heard a knock at the door and I signaled Irania
to be still. At close range I'd be ready with Hugo
the stiletto. "Tickets," I heard a voice from the
other side of the doorway say. Cautiously opening
with my left hand, it was indeed only the conduc-
tor. He inspected our tickets, separated them, and
returned the portions we were to keep, tipped his
Kepi hat. and walked away down the corridor.
I closed and locked the door again. "I think we
can relax, Irania, at least for a little while." As I
turned to Irania, I noticed she had apparently al-
ready planned on just that—relaxing. The curtains
were drawn in the compartment, and she was tug-
ging at the zipper on the back of her dress.
Irania was standing there by the shaded com-
partment window in her pearl-white silk slip,
nylons, and high heels, almost a classic pinup pose,
one leg slightly forward, her right hand toying with
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NICK CARTER
some loose curls at the nape Of her neck, her eyes
slightly downcast. Her breasts thrust hard against
the fabric restraining them, the slip outlining every
plane and curve of her body.
"Are you trying to tell me something?" I said,
laughing. We started toward one another almost
simultaneously, our arms entwining about each
other as we met. The train was starting to move
now, but the pace was gentle and there was little to
the motion but a pleasant rocking sensation. When
you watch people making love on the screen these
days, it can be very depressing. A kiss is just a
touch of the lips, however passionate the facial ex-
pressions or the contortions of the lovers as they
move in each other's arms. But a kiss is more than
that—it's not just the lips that touch and caress,
but the bodies as well. And ours was a kiss like
that. Her abdomen squeezed tightly against me, the
shape of her body forcing itself into comformation
against mine. As I bent to kiss her neck, despite her
height I could see she was standing on her toes.
I could hear her whispering in my ear, "I love
you, Nick Carter." I took her face in my right
hand, then brought my mouth down on hers, my
right hand drifting downward, then furiously
caressing her left breast. I bent over her and arched
her toward me.
I carried her the few steps to the far side of the
compartment from where we'd stood, then I set her
down on the long seat, dropping to one knee beside
her. Again she wrapped her arms around my neck
and I drew her up toward me. Her breath was hot
and coming in short gasps as I kissed her, our
tongues gently touching, almost as though they
were tipped with fire. I think we both realized that
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THE TURKISH BLOODBATH
145
time was running short, perhaps running out.
There was no surety in the coming confrontation
with Rauffmann, and if we survived it, there would
still be dangers to contend with. An odds-maker
would have been discouraged with our prospects.
The noise of the wheels on the steel rails was not
only audible now, but the vibration could be felt
through the floor of the compartment.
She helped me, lifting herself against her elbow
as I slid her slip up past her hips and then struggled
the panty hose and the thin, lace-trimmed panties
down below her knees. I stripped my clothes and
lay down beside her. In the confining space of the
narrow seat, our bodies were as close-pressed as
they had been when we'd kissed moments earlier.
I could feel the tips of her fingers—the slight
pain of her nails—stroking me and then moving me
into her. I propped myself on my elbows over her.
There was still some pain in my shoulder from the
injury the previous day, but somehow it didn't
matter. I slid a hand undet her back and arched her
toward me....
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Chapter Fifteen
I knotted my tie in the dark-toned half-reflection
of the compartment window. "Will you zip my
dress?" I heard her say behind me.
I turned. "I'd rather do the opposite. frankly," I
said, but I walked toward her and she turned her
back to me and moved her shoulders as the zipper
brought the dress together across her back. She
turned and kissed me lightly on the lips. then
moved her fingers to my tie.
"I'll straighten it for you, Nick."
We'd just pulled out of Communist Bulgaria,
luckily without incident, and it was dark already
outside. The assumed names Tufik had booked our
compartment under had kept the KGB away. I'd
been dressed for an hour while she'd slept and I'd
dealt with the passport control people. In Bulgaria
the train had been boarded by several men. Three
Of them, obviously together, were rather old-look*
ing, well-dressed business types. One of the faces
I'd recognized as belonging to Dre Rauffmann. It
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THE TURKISH BLOODBATH
147
was their move, and I was beginning to feel a bit
edgy that they hadn't made it yet.
As I turned from Irania to light another
cigarette, her hand touching my shoulder, I heard a
brisk knock at the door. I slipped Wilhelmina the
Luger from her holster and into my trouser band,
then slipped on the dark-blue jacket of my suit to
cover the pistol. I opened the door with my left
hand and stepped back, my right hand almost
touching the butt of the gun.
It wasn't one of the Kepi-hatted train personnel
or a government official for additional passport in.
spection—not a ruse at all. It was one of the older
men who had accompanied Rauffman when he had
boarded the train. He stood there in the doorway,
his English fogged by a thick German accent as he
spoke. "You know who I am, Mr. Carter?' Y
"Not by name, I apologize, but by philosophy,
certainly."
His lined face creased even more deeply as he
smiled. "I see you don't care to mince words, sir.
May I come in?"
I edged back toward the window of the compart-
ment, turned to Irania, and said to her, "Sit down
as close to the window as you can; darling," then
turned back to the Nazi and said, "Forgive me for
not getting the door, but J know Nazis are so capa-
ble. You can close it behind you. Sit as close to the
door as you can and keep your hands in sight. You
should understand the concept of prejudice, I'm
sure. Well, I'm prejudiced against Nazis—I'd
almost enjoy shooting you with just the slightest
provocation."
The man moved through the doorway, slowly
closing the door behind him, and sat down. "May
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NICK CARTER
I light a cigarette?" he asked.
'*Rules still hold—if anything Other than smok-
ing material even seems to be in your hands, I'll
shoot."
As he carefully placed a cigarette in a thin,
yellowed-ivory holder, then lit it with a battered
wind lighter, he kept his hands plainly in sight, his
movements slow and deliberate. I tossed my own
cigarettes to Irania, saying, "Light one for me." In
a moment she stepped cautiously beside me and
placed the cigarette between my lips, her fingers
trembling slightly.
"I am Dr. Kleissner, Mr. Carter."
"I wish I could say, 'charmed.' "
He ignored my crack and went on. "You know
why Dr.' Rauffmann and myself are here. We know
that you have the vial—which is useless to you, of
course—unless you feel that an antitoxin could be
manufactured quickly enough to inoculate the en.
tire world. That's if one could be made, of course."
"I doubt," I said softly, a cloud of my cigarette
smoke drifting toward him, "that your organiza-
tion would consider using the contents of the vial
without an antitoxin, would it?"
"Very good, sir. Very good, indeed. You're
right, of course. But I speak quite honestly when I
say that isolating a defense against the formula
would be impossible in less than six months of in-
tensive work by the best professionals. It took the
lone genius of Dr. Rauffmann twice that long with
a total understanding of the formula and its prop-
erties firmly in mind. Your possession of the vial
will only speed us toward using the formula before
you can develop an antitoxin."
"So, what's your point?"
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THE TURKISH BLOODBATH
'Well, my point, sir, is simply—
149
'Let me guess," I snapped, cutting him off.
ou really don't want to be forced into using the
us—you just want it as a threat."
'Yes, as a matter of fact. We would rather
ssess, or dominate, if you will, a functioning
rld rather than one populated only with the
ld."
*What about Jews, Blacks, Catholics, etcetera?"
'Certainly we have plans for some selective de-
pulation—the world is too crowded already. As
u well know," he added, almost as an after-
»ught. "Gypsies, for example, like the young
y sitting here with you. What useful purpose
they serve—perhaps the obvious thing for
now, but an Aryan woman would be just as
rhe Nazi had brought me to an emotional level
idn't want. I stepped across the room and back-
nded him across the mouth with my left hand. I
pped back. A tiny line of blood edged the left
mer of his mouth.
He looked back at me and laughed. "You'll have
do better than that, Mr. Carter. I hadn't realized
u were a crusader as well. I'll get right to the
int, then. I'm offering—on behalf of Herr Dr.
,uffmann and the Party—a trade, one that con-
ns your only option for survival.
"With the vial in your possession," Kleissner
ntinued, "we have no alternative but to attempt
kill you and retrieve it. If we have the vial in this
Inner, you will be dead—and the woman as well.
en if you escape and we recapture the vial, you
il die eventually when or if we use the toxin. You
hopelessly outnumbered aboard this train, by
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NICK CARTER
the way. But you do have one slight chance—
choice for life rather than death—if you are i'
telligent enough and decisive enough to avail you,
self of it."
When I said nothing, he went on. "I have bee
impowered to offer you your life—guaranteec
And though it is against our principles, I will mal
the same offer regarding this gypsy woman,
whom you seem to be so fond. An
you have already surmised—does exist. In retul
for the vial, we will inoculate you and the wome
against the eventual use of the toxin. You can s
up whatever parameters you wish to be certain
are keeping our part Of the bargain. I will even a
fer myself as hostage against your dissatisfactio:
And, if money motivates you, we have a briefca:
containing one million US. dollars in cash that
be yours. I don't expect a decision instantly. I r
alize perhaps you'd like to talk with Dr. Rau
fmann and in some way satisfactory to you veri
our sincerity. If I have your permission to leave;
can return in twenty minutes, let us
more confident now, perhaps, he checked tl
watch on his make the arrany
I waved the Luger. saying, "Yes, twem
minutes."
He rose from his seat and started for tl
doorway. then turned back and said, "That pisti
of yours—we Germans are remarkable, aren
I looked down at Wilhelmina the Luger, the
back into the Nazi's eyes. "I momentarily have fc
gotten your name."
"It is Kleissner—Dr. Johann Kleissner."
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THE TURKISH BLOODBATH
151
"That's right," I said. "Forgive me. Well, •doc-
tor, this pistol was designed and built long before
there were any Nazis to claim credit for it. Perhaps
that is the one thing positive anyone could say
about Nazis—their flashy uniforms and daggers
and an eye for good ordnance. But the uniforms
only covered up something so evil that to this day
the mind almost reels in trying to comprehend it—
and the daggers and the guns were just used like
cleavers, with Europe as the butcher block. It
doesn't take genius to slaughter unarmed women
and children dying of starvation. Get out— Now."
"Until later, then," he said, smiling implacably,
then left.
The door clicked shut. I walked toward it and
slammed the locking bolt home. As I turned back
into the compartment Irania came running into my
arms, tears streaming down her face. "You're not
going to make an agreement with s"
"No," I whispered, holding her close to me.
"There are few allies I wouldn't take in a tight situ-
ation, and there are even fewer people I can actual-
ly say I hate. The KGB people, for example—
they're just doing their job, as I'm doing mine. It's
not personal. But Rafik, the man who slaughtered
your camp. That is personal. And Rauffmann. and
this Dr. Kleissner— In this business you meet peo-
ple who survived the holocaust; you meet people
whose families were butchered just to make soap,
or for the gold in their dental work. No," I said,
my voice trembling slightly with an uncharac-
teristic rage. "Rauffmann and Kleissner may not
realize it, but they're dead men. The men in the
Wermacht during the War, or the Luftwaffe—any
of the military—they were doing a job. They were
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NICK CARTER
soldiers. Rauffmann and the ones like him weren't
doing a job—they were just venting their per-
versions."
Her sobbing became softer against my chest. I
glanced down at my watch. In just a little over fif-
teen minutes the long game with Rauffmann would
approach its end one way or the other ... sudden-
death playoffs
We both waited quietly. The situation didn't re-
quire any fantastic brainstorming on my part. It
was relatively simple. Keep Irania with me—I'd al-
ready given het the sawed-off barrel Smith &
Wesson revolver I'd liberated from that KGB
agent the day before, and shown her how to use it.
if need be. With Irania in my sight, they couldn't
get at her for a hostage. We'd meet with Rauf-
fmann for further discussion of his deal. I'd try to
make him progress to where he actually revealed
the location of the antitoxin. Then it would be a
matter of guns—theirs against mine, and there was
nothing else for it but that. And, this confrontation
was coming about seven hours earlier than I'd ex-
pected—so if we made it, we'd be jumping the train
earlier and much farther from the airfield than I
liked.
The knock came—precisely on time, as I'd ex-
pected. was nearly midnight. I opened the door
and Kleissner stood there. I asked, "Where shall
we meet—neutral ground?"
"I'd planned on that, Mr. Carter—the club car,
if you'd like to follow me. The young lady needn't
come." He was smoking with that thin, yellow-
ivory holder again, his eyes watching me warily. He
didn't buy my cooperation for an instant, but like
actors in a bad drama, we had no choice but to
play out our parts.
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THE TURKISH BLOODBATH
153
"Irania comes with me. Otherwise I don't go."
He nodded indifferently, saying nothing. took
the vial in its briefcase under my arm, then kept
Irania behind me as we followed Kleissner down
the companionway toward the club car—perhaps
some hundred yards away. The sucking motion of
the car's slipstream slammed the club car door
closed noisily behind us. Rauffmann turned and
looked up, startled. He was almost as young-ap-
pearing as in the old photo I'd seen, apparently
keeping himself up. He stood up and walked to-
ward me, offering his hand. Kleissner went to step
aside. The Luger in my hand already, I said,
"Don't move." Kleissner stood there, interposed
like a shield between Irania and me and the
business-suited men scattered about the opposite
end of the car.
Rauffmann withdrew his hand. "Come, Herr
Carter," he said. "Surely you must believe I'd hon-
or this informal truce for the purposes of ironing
out the details—as you Americans say." Rauf-
fmann was right there under my gun—the inventor
Of the hideous formula for turning innocent men
and women into homicidal maniacs while their
bodies burned to death with fever, the man who'd
experimented with disease vectoring during the
Second World War on countless women and chil-
dren and old people, a man still wanted for his war
crimes. Rauffmann knew I wouldn't shoot just yet,
though, and he knew why.
He smiled when he noticed me eyeing the brief*
case under his arm, handcuffed to his wrist. "Yes,
I have both the sole copy of my notes and the anti-
toxin right here," Rauffmann said. "I also have
you outnumbered. Even if the girl is armed and can
be counted on to fight effectively, there are still five
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guns to every one of yours. Show them,
Hermann," he said over his shoulder. From under
their coats, beneath the tables by which they sat—
in one case, from inside a briefcase—submachine-
guns appeared.
"You're laughing," Rauffmann said. "Why,
Herr Carter?"
I turned and glanced at Kleissner. "Just a cone
versation Dr. Kleissner and I had a few moments
ago about the Nazi genius. Israeli Uzi submachine-
guns just struck me as being a bit out Of character
for such avowed anti-Semitics."
"You are a rare mant Herr Carter," Rauffmann
said, his shoulders shrugging at the irony. "We
must use what we can these days, however."
"You talked a deal—may I see the antitoxin?"
"You're not serious, Mr. Carter? You—your
countryis top agent—would take our offer?" It was
Kleissner speaking.
Rauffmann merely smiled. "We are playing the
game, aren't we, Herr Carter? All right—I shall
play—you have no options. If indeed you wish to
make the trade, we shall be willing." Rauffmann
reached his almost effeminate right hand into the
case handcuffed to his left wrist, extracting a vial
identical to the one in the suitcase I carried. "I
risked this at customs. I am, after all, a doctor, and
this is purely medicinal—nothing but the proper
combinations of antibodies and other ingredients
—and it needs no refrigeration, even. As you must
agree, though you may dispute my purpose, Herr
Carter—I am quite gifted." Rauffmann bowed
slightly, insufferable to the last detail.
There was a large sheaf of handwritten papers in
the case—I hoped they were his notes. As Irania
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and I had walked down the hallway behind
Kleissner, I'd palmed the weapon that would be
my only gambit, outgunned as I was. Tufik had
slipped it to me when we'd shaken hands back
there at the station—a big brother to Pierre the gas
bomb I'd used earlier against the KGB, only this
gas was nonlethal. The chemical composition was
similar in some ways to Pierre, and the injection I'd
had would be just as effective. The girl—Irania—
would be out like a light for at least a half hour, but
then. she wasn't that difficult to carry.
I flipped the springloaded activation switch for
the gas bomb's impact fuse and tossed the golf-
ball-sized device into the middle of the car. Sub-
machineguns were already firing as the bomb hit
the floor with a smashing sound like a dropped
Christmas ornament. I slammed Irania down be-
hind one of the tables as i dove toward Dr. Rauf.
fmann. Kleissner was on my back, coughing and
sputtering already from the effects of the gas, but
fighting like a man less than half his age. There
wasn't time for subtlety. I pressed the muzzle of
Wilhelmina the Luger against Rauffmann's tem-
ple. ' 'Here's for the victims of your experiments—
go to Hell," I rasped, my trigger finger twitching,
Rauffmann's head exploding. Kleissner, seeming
slightly weakened now from the effect of the gas,
was still clawing at my throat. The SMG fire from
the other end of the car was starting to diminish.
I felt something hard—a pistol butt, probably—
crash down on my left ear. I half-rolled, half-fell
off thedead Rauffmann, Kleissner right above me
now, almost in slow motion turning his automatic
pistol in his hand to fire, his face reddening as he
tried to fight the effects of the gas. *'Past debts for
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you, too, Kleissner,"
whispered as I fired
Wilhelmina twice at point-blank range up into his
chest, her gilding metal-jacketted 9mms hammer.
ing into his body and toppling him to the dining
car floor. I caught a glimpse of Irania as I hauled
myself to my feet. There were no readily visible
signs she'd come to any harm, but already she was
unconscious. The shooting had all but stopped,
one of the already slumped Nazi gunmen, at the far
end of the train still firing harmlessly into the floor,
his fist locked onto his weapon in unconsciousness.
I stood up slowly. J hadn't anticipated such a
limited gun battle. Rauffmann and Kleissner were
dead—Rauffmann had been my only assigned
target. The eight other Nazis would recover quick-
ly enough, perhaps in time to pursue me, but cer-
tainly to try again to work their plans for evil on a
world already plagued with evil enough. I didn't
like playing judge, jury, and executioner, or God,
for that matter—that was their prerogative and one
of the reasons, I decided as I picked up a fallen Uzi
and methodically checked the condition of read-
iness, why these eight remaining Nazis had to die.
I walked up to each of the men in turn and gave
him a short burst behind the ear right where he lay,
then threw down the empty SMG in disgust.
I walked back to the door leading into the club
car and locked it, then took my lock-pick set and
opened the cuff on Rauffmann's pulseless left
wrist. I searched his briefcase; the vial of antitoxin
was intact. I checked my case—so was the vial of
the virus—no stray bullet had smashed it. Dr.
Rauffmann's notes, as best I could understand
them from the technical high German they were
written in, were there, and complete as well. I
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searched Rauffmann's body for anything else that
might have been important, then went around
gathering up the guns and began throwing them
out the window of the speeding club car—all but
one Uzi and six spare magazines that might prove
useful still.
Then finally I checked Irania. She was still un-
conscious, but all right. She would be asleep for
another twenty minutes, perhaps. I caught her inert
form up into my arms and slung her over my shoul-
der; the case I'd carried but now with both vials,
the notes. and the extra magazines for the Uzi were
under my arm, the Uzi itself was slung on my back.
I braced us in the doorway as I opened it. Outside
the terrain was flat and should be—I judged from
the map I'd studied—for another few miles. I
slipped Irania from my shoulder and propped her
beside me and at the flattest possible spot I could
see by the light of the full moon, I pushed her off
the train into the shadows. I jumped quickly after
her, the Uzi off the sling at my back and free in my
hand.
1 hit the ground hard and rolled, gravel kicking
up into my face. The train sped on and began to
vanish in the distance up ahead. Irania, as I found
her ten yards backs looked bruised and dirty, but
unhurt. the limpness of her unconscious state the
perfect defense against the fall's impact.
I gathered her up and over my shoulder once
again and crossed the tracks toward a wooded area
a few yards beyond.
I eased her down in the tree cover and sat there
beside her, checking my watch. The plane would
soon enough be waiting at the airfield .and we
would not show up. But it would come the next
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morning and we should be able to make it by then,
I thought.
I lit a cigarette and looked up at the moon as
clouds lazily drifted across its yellow face.
The mission was all but over. Rafik would per-
haps be somewhere ahead of us, but perhaps not.
Rauffmann was dead, his notes and his toxin cap-
tured, the added bonus of the antitoxin also in
hand. And the beautiful Irania was the ultimate
bonus.
What I'd convinced myself to do back there to
those eight other Nazis in the club car was still
burning at the back of my mind, but I mentally
filed it away to wrestle with when I felt more
awake.
There was still a long walk across country, then
the flight to London and perhaps some rest, then
debriefing after debriefing, and then perhaps some
precious little time with the girl Irania before I was
off again to somewhere on some other job. It was
always that way.
Irania was already starting to stir—perhaps the
coolness of the night air was lessening the duration
of the gas's effect. I took my jacket off and covered
her with it. Exposing my shoulder holster to view
on the remote chance someone would pass by and
notice couldn't possibly be more incriminating
than the Uzi SMG cradled in my lap. There was
nothing to do for now but smoke and watch the
stars fade.
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Chapter Sixteen
The fight with Rauffmann had definitely come
too soon, but there had been no avoiding it. And
because of that, by rough estimate I guessed us to
be a day's walk or more from the airfield where we
were to rendezvous with the plane that would get
us out of Yugoslavia. Irania was still sleeping from
the effect of the gas I'd used, but by now her eyelids
were starting to twitch slightly—a first concrete
sign of her coming around.
It was cold, my jacket gone and covering her.
And we'd need some shelter for the rest of the night
and some sleep.
With luck I'd be abie to steal some kind of trans-
portation to take us to the airfield—with a lot of
luck. The country seemed desolate. But I knew
there had to be farms or villages somewhere
nearby.
I checked my watch—it was already morning,
technically. I started to shake Irania by the shoul-
ders to awaken her. "What, where—'t
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"Relax," I told here "Be quiet a moment until
you're fully awake. Everything is fine, we're safe
and uninjured." It took another few minutes
before she was able to sit up by herself, and then
she was a torrent of questions. I answered them as
best I could. When I came to the part about execut-
ing Rauffmann's confederates she said nothing, ap-
parently sensing that I didn't wish to discuss it,
either.
Finally, said to her, "Do you think you can
walk a ways? I want to get us to some shelter for
the night, and I don't particularly want to stay near
the tracks any longer than we have to."
"Yes," she nodded, still a bit groggy-looking,
think I can walk. Come help me up." I stood and
she took my outstretched right hand and I pulled
her to her feet. She fell against me. "I'll be all right
in a minute."
Her first few steps were cautious, like a drunken
man trying to look sober in front of a traffic cop,
but soon she seemed fit enough to travel, and we
started out. I knew the general direction to the air-
field and our approximate position, but as to what
lay between I was totally mystified. But there
seemed no reason to confide that to her and make
her worry more. I could worry enough for two. The
going was actually easy enough—it was a moonlit
night and there were stats in abundance. It was a
brisk evening, but not at all cold.
I made it that we'd walked about two miles when
I called a rest stop, just before a low hill rising
ahead of us. "You wait here," I whispered, helping
her to sit on the ground. "Rest a minute while I go
up to the brow of that little hill. I want to check our
position. I'll be in sight all the time—just relax."
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Irania nodded, too exhausted to speak. Al-
though she wasn't apparently aware of it, I knew
she didn't have much more than a mile or so left in
her that night—the effect of the gas, the risk of the
sudden death in the gunfight. It would tire even the
most experienced agent. All told, this Gypsy girl
was holding up surprisingly well.
I walked halfway up to the brow of the hill, then
dropped to a crouch and crept forward the rest of
the way. A few feet from the top I flattened myself
against the ground and inched forward. I had no
desire to silhouette myself on high ground with the
moon at my back on such a bright night. I looked
over the top and below me onto a long, narrow
valley seeming to stretch for at least ten miles, a
ribbon of dirt road running from about a hundred
yards to my left down into the valley and through
it, disappearing in the distance. About a half mile
away I saw a farmhouse and a barn. I watched the
scene intently for about five minutes. Hearing
something behind me, I turned quickly.
"Get down," I whispered hoarsely. It was Irania.
"You said you'd be back in a minute," she said,
het voice tinged with fear: She was now flat against
the ground, as was L
"All right, edge up here and have a look, then—
but keep your head down." She joined me there
and we both watched the farmhouse and barn for
several more minutes. Though it would be hard to
tell when most normal people would have been
sleeping anyway, the house and barn seemed
deserted. There were no animals to be seen. I
thought I was able to detect a hole in the barn roof
—a big one—but I wasn't certain, considering the
light and the distance. It could have been a shad-
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ow. But if the barn were damaged, that would be a
further indicator that the place was uninhabited.
I looked beside me to Irania. Even by moonlight
I could see that she was exhausted. I made the de-
cision—we'd move down the hill and try the farm.
At least it would get us down into the valley, the
direction I figured we had to go in any event. I
glanced over the terrain before us and the small rise
we were on seemed as good a place as any to tra-
verse, so I said, "Stay close behind me—let's go."
edged over the rise and started down, then looked
back to see how she was doing. "Keep low," I
rasped as she started to follow me.
There were dense bushes, but not many thorns
along the path we cut. As we reached the valley
floor, where it seemed a few degrees warmer, I re-
membered my coat. In case we were spotted I
didn't feel like advertising the fact that I was
armed. I left the Uzi submachinegun at the edge of
the underbrush, taking the magazine with me stuck
into my belt. If the gun were stolen. it would be
useless without the magazine. I slipped my coat
back on.
"Wait a minute," Irania whispered. She reached
into the shoulder bag she'd carried even back there
on the train when we*d gone to the dining car, and
pulled out a handkerchief. She started to daub at
her face, then looked at me and said, shouldn't
bother?"
"The face is beautiful—but I think you'll need
more than a handkerchief to get it clean." I shoved
my attache case containing Rauffmann's vial, the
antidote, and Rauffmann's notes under my arm
and took her hand. "If anyone asks, we had a ter-
rible auto accident back there and you don't re-
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member a thing about it. I'll take it from there."
"If anyone asks." she said, her eyes smiling, "are
we married?"
"No," I said, smiling back at her. "But we're
going steady." I started walking out into the
pasture ahead of us.
She was about a pace behind me. "What is this
'going steady'? The nuns never taught me about
that."
I turned and looked at her. "I didn't think they
would have."
The going was ridiculously easy as we crossed
through the knee-high grass and stopped by the
edge of the dirt road I'd seen moments earlier from
above. The farmhouse was a hundred yards to our
right and set back a short distance from the main
road along a short access drive. I hated to cross an
open road in moonlight in what could at least
marginally be viewed as enemy territory, but there
was no option—anyone who had been observing us
would have spotted us ten minutes earlier when we
hit the pasture,
We crossed then, quickly, and walked along the
far side of the road toward the farmhouse. The
barn was nearest and when we were just twenty
yards away from it I took a gamble and drew
Irania after me and made a run for it. The barn
door was open and we slipped inside. The farm-
house was giving me disturbing vibrations—did
someone live there? The barn, on the other hand,
was clearly deserted.
"I don't want to sleep here," Irania said, whis-
pering in a small voice by my ear.
I looked around as my eyes grew accustomed to
the greater darkness. I couldn't say that I blamed
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her—rats were scurrying across the floor, you
could hear the movement and their squeaking
sounds and see their tiny eyes almost glowing in the
shadows.
I whispered to Irania, "All right, I'll buy that.
Let me check the house. We can sleep the night in
the field if necessary after we check the barn for a
car or a bicycle or something. I wish we could find
a car—even a horse." I edged back toward the still-
open barn door. "Now this time really wait here,
and keep this." I passed my attaché case to her and
streaked through the doorway, hugging the side of
the barn until t could get around the corner of the
structure farthest away from the farmhouse. As I
did, I thought I saw a flicker of light in one of its
windows.
I was just debating whether to abandon the place
right then or still check the house, when suddenly I
became preoccupied with something more im-
'mediate and more threatening—a black car coming
along the main road behind me was starting to
slow, as if to turn into the rutted access drive lead-
ing into the farmyard. And I watched as the vehicle
did just that, dousing its headlights as it completed
the turn. I could hear the sound of the engine cut-
ting out as the vehicle rolled powerless into the
gravel area not ten yards from where I crouched
alongside the barn. A closer look showed the black
car to be several years old, dirty, and the body in
considerable need of repair.
The thought crossed my mind that it might be
the owner of the place, and perhaps the light I'd
seen inside—or thought I'd seen, at least—could
have been made by his wife and that he was afraid
to waken her, hence the quiet approach from the
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main roads. But that thought vanished instantly
when three men climbed out the car and stood
beside it. They were very young—late teens to early
twenties, I guessed, all dressed in imitation-looking
leather jackets and tight work pants; two of the
men were wearing stocking caps.
My curiosity was piqued—was this the scene of a
drug deal in the making or what? I thought. One of
the three men—the one without the hat—walked
around to the trunk of the car, opened it, and
reached inside. He extracted a jack handle and two
heavy tow chains and tossed the jack handle to one
of the other two men. The remaining man walked
over to the hatless man and took one of the chains:
Suddenly, all their desire for quiet seemed to
have vanished. "All right, old woman. Open up!"
the hatless one shouted from the middle Of the
yard. There was no answering call from the house.
I silently hoped that Irania would remain still.
"Old woman, let us in or we'll burn you out." Still
no answer.
Finally the hatless one turned to the one with the
jack handle and said, "Go smash the lock." As this
one moved obediently toward the door, the door
slowly opened. The tiny, frail woman now standing
in the doorway looked to be in her sixties at least,
her hair an intricate mass of braided silver. "Give
us your money, old woman," the one with thejack
handle sneered.
"If my husband were here," she started to say,
but the hatless one. stepping toward her, cut her
off.
"If, old woman. But he's in the hospital," the
hatless one said, "and unless you want us to beat
you like we beat him, you'll give us your money
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now, now! And you won't mention this to the po-
lice or we'll come back and burn this old place to
the ground with both of you inside."
With that the woman started to raise her hands
in protest, "Please," she shrieked, "this house is all
we have. We don't have any money, please! I told
you that the last time."
I turned away, rubbed my hands across my eyes,
and stared off across the field for a moment. Of all
the farmhouses in all the Yugoslav countryside,
this one had to be the target for a bunch of young
punks and a home invasion. Like everyone, I'd
read about home invasions, that usually the elderly
were the principle victims but here? In the
middle of Yugoslavia, I asked myself? It was clear
they'd come to the farm to torment her before, put
the old woman's husband in the hospital so that he
was now unable to defend her.
I turned back—the scene had not changed.
I could let it play itself through and then get the
hell out with Irania, or perhaps wait until the three
men went inside and then steal their car. Or ... I
watched as the hatless one started swinging his
chain and walking slowly toward the old woman,
heard the catcalls from the one with the crowbar,
saw him wave it toward her face. I could see Hawk
in my mind's get involved, Carter!"
But as I stepped away from the barn, I mentally
said, 'The hell with that—everybody's had a moth.
er once.' If I had been a believer in fate, I would
have thought providence had brought me here to
protect the silvery-haired old woman.
I shouted in the most guttural Yugoslavian I
could muster, "Turn around!"
There were distinct advantages, I decided, in
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putting these three punks away permanently. The
woman wouldn't be bothered again. If I only beat
them up, they'd only come back sometime and take
it out on her. Probably, they were doing the same
number on other older people in the area. Proba-
bly, too, the Yugoslav courts were giving jokers
like these the same sort of slap on the wrist that
some U.S. judges handed out these days instead of
justice. And besides—my eyes drifted toward their
car—four wheels were better than walking.
The three young men turned almost as though
animated by one mind, then just stared at me. The
hatless one, after a minute, spoke first, "Who are
"Did you put this old woman's husband in the
hospital, twerp?" I used the American term—with
television and books it had become almost univer-
sally understood.
"That's right," he said, laughing. "And we can
put you there too, man," he added. "Who are
I looked back at him and started walking toward
him. I wasn't going to use a gun—the old woman
might have too much trouble explaining that to the
police if someone heard the shots. I glanced at her.
The old woman's expression was fixed; she stood
there motionless. When I was within arm's reach of
the hatless one I answered him, "I'm not going to
bother telling you who I am, slob. Because you
won't be alive to remember it."
All three were young, they would be faster than
I was, they were armed and since I'd decided not to
use a gun, discounting Hugo, the stiletto up my
sleeve, I was bare-handed. But then experience
counts for a lot.
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My right hand flashed toward the hatless one's
throat. It was a routine you couldn't use against
another professional—it was too obvious. I
clamped my fist around his Adam's apple and
crushed his windpipe, then opened my hand and let
him drop to his knees to choke to death. Not even
a doctor could have saved him. The other two guys
started toward me and I took a half step back, then
apparently they noticed what I'd done to their
friend and they both stopped in their tracks.
I caught one of them glancing toward the auto-
mobile. "l should let you guys go?" I asked.
"Would you have let her go, shown her any com-
passion?" And t gestured toward the old woman.
"1 don't think you would have."
The guy with the chain came at me, swinging it,
and I dropped to the ground and scissored him
around the shins and brought him down hard. As
I pushed myself to my feet—the one with the
crowbar already rushing me—I kicked the guy on
the ground in the side Of the head and grabbed up
his weapon. When the one with the crowbar saw
the chain in my hands now, he slowed down and
started circling me, trying to stay out of effective
reach of my chain.
"Here, sissy," I said, dropping the chain and
stepping away from it. "Feel more confident
now?" With that he rushed me and I sidestepped
and wheeled, the heel of my left foot hammering
into his right rib cage. I spun away. He staggered,
then turned and charged toward me again, this
time the jack handle held down lower to guard
against a repeat of my first blow. I let him come
right at me, then stepped into his open-armed
stance, locked his right hand, holding the jack han-
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dle under my right arm, and wheeled into him, my
left elbow—still skinned raw from my experiences
earlier back at the stream with that first helicopter
—smashing into his solar plexus, then up into his
Adam's apple to crush his windpipe. I let loose of
his arm—the jack handle had already fallen from
his lifeless hand to the ground. I let his dead body
flop to the ground.
I turned to finish the second man if he needed it
—I wasn't sure if my kick to his head had killed
him. But there, standing over him, was the old
lady, the handle of a pitchfork in her withered and
frail fingers. My eyes followed the handle down—
the tines of the pitchfork had half disappeared, im-
bedded into the young hoodlum's back.
Hatred spawned by fear . And finally you
can't take any more and you turn and defend your-
self—I would have cheered for her if I'd thought it
wouldn't have scared her half to death. I walked
slowly up to the old woman—I could see Irania
walking toward us from the barn. I put my arm
around the old woman and let her bury her silvery
head against my chest: in a moment I could hear
her sobbing....
It was sometime later, and I think she was using
Irania and me as an excuse to force herself to keep
busy—she made a full meal for us almost from
scratch at two-thirty in the morning, told us all the
details about her husband and how the boys had
come to their place and stolen from them three
times before, taking what little money and few val-
uables she and her husband still possessed. The
farm had once been prosperous, but that was
before her husband had lost the sight in his eyes to
the point that he could barely see to walk unaided.
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They lived on the farm alone now. their grown chil-
dren occasionally coming by with food, the govern-
ment helping out, too. But with her husband in the
hospital, she felt terribly alone. The young men
had had no right, she insisted—repeating that
phrase all through the time we were with her, as if
it were some sort of justification for what had hap-
pened—to beat her husband with the chain that
last He'd almost died.
I couldn't sleep and neither could Irania. We
kept the woman company, spoke with her and
drank her coffee until five-thirty in the morning,
then Irania took the woman to her room and put
her to bed, exhausted. I'd told the woman I'd dis-
pose of the bodies and to say nothing. The police
would never suspect her of a thing. She had dis-
cussed whether or not she should confess to killing
the one with her pitchfork. I lied and told her he
was already dead from when I'd kicked him. Irania
waited there while I dumped the three dead bodies
a few miles up the road in a drainage ditch. After I
came back with the car, having retrieved my Uzi
from the bushes, I took all the Yugoslavian curren-
cy had except for the equivalent of a hundred
dollars American and left it on the table beside my
coffee cup.
I led Irania to the car, let her inside and checked
the gas gauge when I got the thing started again.
The tank was half full—enough for at least two
hundred miles, I figured, and it wasn't anywhere
near that distance to the airfield—fifty at the most.
I figured the three guys had come from a town
nearby and I headed the car in that direction. As I
turned down the road, I realized I'd never gotten
the old woman's name. Iraniat beside me close, had
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THE TURKISH BLOODBATH
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been silent. know why you did that, Nick. If you
hadn't stepped in, I think I would have tried to do
something. How can people do something like—
I cut her off. "No different than Dr. Rauffmann
and his Nazis, or Colonel Rafik and his PLO ter-
rorists. Bad little boys who grew up pulling the
wings off flies for kicks and never got straightened
out when they should have. There's no difference
between a guy like Rauffmann or Rafik and those
guys who attacked the old woman back there—just
players in different leagues, but it's all the same
sick game." I didn't say anything more to Irania
for a long time, but somehow now the affair back
on the Orient Express with Rauffmann's henchmen
took on mote meaning. I wondered how many old
ladies those Nazis had beaten to death or terrified?
As we approached the town, I finally fixed our lo-
cation. And I was glad. This job had been more
than anyone had bargained for. I looked at Irania
and pressed her hand in my fingers. "Let's head
home." I turned the car back down the road past
the town and toward the airfield.
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Chapter Seventeen
Now that we had a car, the rendezvous at the
airfield would be not only possible, but easy. The
pilot wouldn't be landing until 8:30, and by 6:30 AM
we were more than two-thirds of the way there.
He'd stay on the ground, barring any problems,
until 10. If we hadn't made the rendezvous, he
would be forced to return the following day. After
that, we would be at least partially given up for lost
and, if any hope at all were entertained for our
eventual escape from Yugoslavia into the non-
Communist West, it would be that we had found a
land route. There would be no further attempts at
use of the field to pick us up, and probably no
further use of the field at all. since its secrecy would
be compromised in the event we were caught and
somehow made to talk.
Irania was in that stage of wakefulness that fol-
lows a totally unrelenting period of little or no
sleep—alert but headachey. Neither of us had any
aspirins, and if she took anything for herhead it
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might be all the more likely that she would fall
asleep.
I couldn't risk that we stop the car and sleep by
the roadside, even if there had been no security
'considerations. With the paltry rest we'd had, we
would sléep through our rendezvous time almost
certainly.
I kept driving until I judged us to be less than
five miles from the airfield and then found a turn-
off that didn't look too potentially axle-breaking
and took it. I drove for a half mile more into the
wooded area flanking the roadside and stopped the
car.
There was nothing to do but talk until eight-fif-
teen or so and then highball it to the airfield and
hope that everything would run smoothly.
We left the automobile and walked off a few
yards and sat under an oak tree to shade ourselves.
I opened my last full pack of cigarettes and offered
her one, then lit both of them. There was some-
thing troubling her. "What is it, Irania?" I asked. I
turned around to get my eyes out of the sun, still
comparatively low on the horizon to the east. The
grass beneath us was still wet in patches with the
dew.
"I am wondering what will become of me when
I am in England—a fortuneteller, perhaps? That
seems to be what Gypsies do in large cities."
J laughed, then touched my hand to her cheek.
"You're a bright girl, Irania, speak English
marvelously well. I mean," I said, "if you want to
be a fortuneteller, fine. But I've got the right cone
nections to get you started in anything short of
brain surgery or nuclear physics. What would you
like to do?"
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NICK CARTER
"When I spent that year in the hospital when I
was just a little girl, the sisters who were the nurses
there seemed to be so . , . I can't explain it. Maybe
a nurse, but I don't know .. s" She drew heavily on
the cigarette, looking down at a blade of grass she
twirled in her fingers. Her nail polish was scratched
beyond repair.
"I think I can arrange to get you started—the
rest would be up to you. You have to remember
something. My government and the British govern-
ment both will owe you a great deal for your help
—even for stealing that vial originally from Dre
Rauffmann. Otherwise, the world could be facing
the worst plague it has ever known now. And if you
hadn't been kind enough to leave Rauffmann
somewhere where he could get medical help, you'd
still be wandering around with that vial and some-
time by accident you would have smashed it and
the plague would have started. No—I'd say you
have the right instincts to do something useful in
the world, like becoming a nurse. As you've seen
lately, there seem to be plenty of people like Rauf-
fmann and Rafik to do the bad things. The world
could use a little more good in it."
We talked more, like old campaigners discussing
the war even for a little of the time, and soon the
time passed and we took to the car again toward
the airfield. We intersected a dirt road and, per-
haps five hundred yards beyond, saw the outer
boundary fence of the airfield. It appeared
deserted, just as it should be, but this close to suc-
cess for the mission I didn't feel like taking any
chances. We abandoned the car and left the road,
keeping to the trees and circling the field broadly.
Although I couldn't see inside the one still-stand-
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THE TURKISH BLOODBATH
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ing hangar building, the field itself seemed totally
deserted except for the twin-engine cargo plane
standing with its engines idling at the downwind
side of the single, potholed runway. I could vaguely
make out the outline of a man sitting behind the
windshields his head moving from side to side occa-
sionally as though he were looking for someone—
us, it seemed. It was now 8:45.
Everything looked just as it was supposed to be.
Unless we climbed a chainlink fence topped with
barbed wire, there was only one way into the air-
field: the collapsed and unhinged front gate.
As we walked toward it, I could hear the pilot
revving his engines, and a hand waved at us
through the windshield. The field had apparently
been abandoned for decades—perhaps since the
war. Giant weeds grew through cracks in the de-
teriorating parking apron, and on closer inspection
the sole runway itself was much the same. But, if
the pilot had brought the plane in, that meant he
could bring the plane out.
Other than the noise of the aircraft itself, as I
walked beside Irania, her right hand in my left, the
attaché case under my left arm, and the Uzi held
ready in my right fist, there was no sound to be
heard at all. But that sixth sense you start to de-
velop over the years was starting to call to me now.
I could almost feel it in my bones, in the hairs on
the back of my neck—something wrong, A trap?
I started toward the plane because there was
nothing else to do, keeping Irania close at my side
to protect her. Again the pilot waved, but I
couldn't see a face. I stopped dead in my tracks.
The sixth-sense signals were coming strong now.
My face tightened, the tendons in my neck stiff-
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NICK CARTER
ening. I looked over my shoulder—nothing. But
there was something—I could almost smell it.'
"Come on, Irania," I shouted. "We're getting out
of here."
I started running, the girl at my side. Still no
sound except the revving of the engines, and now
the hardness of our breathing. We were moving at
an oblique angle to the plane, across the airfield
and making a 'wide circle of the hangar building.
We'd have to go over the fence. If I were wrong I'd
feel like a fool afterward, but in my business you
must live on instincts—or die for ignoring them.
Suddenly, the silence vanished—shouts, engine
noises beyond that of the plane, gunfire—as
though someone had pushed a button somewhere
for the action to begin. I shot a glance over my
shoulder—the fence was still some hundred yards
away from us. It was Rafik, his burnoose-clad ter-
rotist band in full pursuit, some riding motor-
cycles, most of them running after us, the shots
from automatic weapons fire pouring toward us.
Rafik was shouting in English, €SDon't let them get
away!" as his followers seemed to stream unend-
ingly from the hangar. looked to the plane. The
pilot was still waving at us. The pounding of his
engines had increased now, and the plane started
barreling across the rutted runway ever closer to
us.
I decided to take the gamble that it was our pilot,
because the plane seemed our only hope. Caught in
the open as we were, the men mounted on motor•
cycles almost upon us, the hail of bullets—the
plane was our only hope, however slim. jerked the
girl's hand for her to follow, opening fire toward
our pursuers as I changed direction, angling us to-
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THE TURKISH BLOODBATH
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ward the plane. The Uzi in my hand was like a liv-
ing thing. Accurate fire was impossible, but a
sweeping motion of the muzzle across the target
area was having some effect. I downed one of the
motorcycle riders, then another. Then two men
who were coming up close behind them on foot.
The Uzi was empty now and the spare magazines
were useless to me inside the attaché case. I hurled
the gun downrange and twisted the Luger from my
belt and opened fire again. The plane began to slow
as the distance to it closed—twenty yards, fifteen—
just ten yards to go. The twin-engine cargo plane
jerkeq to a halt and I could see the pilot climbing
from his chair. As we reached the fuselage almost
touching it nowt the hatch opened. I reached down
and swept Irania up into my arms and hurled her
body through the opening into the plane. I boosted
myself up, the case going in ahead of me. Only then
did I look up—just in time to twist my face away
from the combat-booted foot that was crashing
down toward me.
The blow caught me on the side of my head rath-
er than full face, and I sprawled back from the
hatch onto the runway. As looked up, I fired. The
man inside the aircraft was a PLO terrorist. My
bullet caught him in the forehead, and he fell back.
As I pushed myself to my feet—the shooting
suddenly stilled—I felt my legs being torn from un•
der me. I hit the runway surface hard. More of the
Palestinians were coming down on top of me.
Fists and feet pounded at my face and my body
—I squirmed out of the way of a killing blow to my
groin. The Luger was still in my right fist and I
fired it point-blank into the mob crushing me
down. Then the pistol was empty. I hauled myself
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NICK CARTER
onto one knee, Hugo—the pencil-thin stiletto I car.
ried—in my left hand. There was no chance to re-
load the pistol—I used it as a bludgeon, crashing it
down on skulls and necks, whipping in with Hugo
to slice into my attackers. The battle seemed un-
ending. but I realized somewhere inside me that
this was all happening in a matter of seconds.
I lost the gun, my right wrist almost broken by a
savate kick. I couldn't even use the stiletto properly
now—the fighting was too close. I slashed with it
and when I caught a target, ripped with my remain•
ing strength. My face felt covered with blood—I
didn't know whose.
One of the attackers was coming in at me with a
long-bladed bayonet. I jerked aside as best 'l could.
felt the knife edge skitter along my ribs, then thrust
forward with my own blade, catching my attacker
in the throat. As I turned around, the butt of an
SMG came crashing toward my face, I tried to haul
up my hand to protect myself or at least deflect the
blow. It kept coming.
Suddenly the side of my head exploded in pain.
As the blackness came I could feel the dull thud of
blows all over my head and body....
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Chapter Eighteen
For what seemed like forever I tried opening my
left eye. When finally realized I couldn't—it was
swollen, I could tell, and seemed crusted shut with
blood—I decided my right eye would have to do.
When I opened it my head began to throb. When I
breathed my lungs felt as though they were on fire
—broken ribs, perhaps on both sides, I guessed.
My arms were pinioned behind me—handcuffs,
from the feel of it. And my right wrist ached badly,
sprained or perhaps broken. I looked down. The
shirt I wore was in tatters, the entire left side cov-
cred with blood—I remembered the bayonet
wound just before the lights went out on my head.
My ankles were tied together with some sort of
huge rubber band—an old fanbelt, perhaps. My
shoes were gone, lying on the fuselage floor near
my feet.
I looked up as a pair of combat-booted feet came
into view. One of the feet raised and I tried twisting
my head away, but the foot caught me on the left
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side of the headt smashing the opposite side of my
head against one of the ribs of the fuselage. "Turn
around and look up at me."
I did. Burnoose and all, the Broomhandle
Mauser pistol in his right hand, I had never seen
Rafik looking so self-pleased. He was smoking a
cigarette and I winced as he flicked the hot ashes
against my face. "You killed four. of my men
before you reached the plane, then six more after
we had you. You fought well. And thank you for
the vial—and the surprise bonus of the antitoxin. I
assume that is what it is? I'll know more after I
peruse Dr. Rauffmann's notes, which you also so
kindly provided. I should almost pay you for your
help."
My head, my body—even my insides seemed to
ache. I wasn't about to listen any more attentively
to Rafik's song-and-dance than I had to. Feigning
a spasm of pain, I twisted my head down to floor
level. In the tail section of the fuselage I could
Irania, her eyes opened wide with fear, heavy
adhesive tape bound around her mouth. Her hands
were behind her—bound, too, I assumed, her legs
free but clamped tightly together. I could read the
thought in her mind—her dress was ripped to
shreds; she'd apparently fought them. Her ankles
had been left untied for a purpose. Rafik would
enjoy that.
I looked back at Rafik.
"In a matter of moments the plane will take Off
and you will be on your way to London with the
vial of the virus—just as you'd planned, moreor
less." I knew what was coming, so I faked a spasm
of pain again and checked the forward portion of
the compartment—one guard only, armed with an
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THE TURKISH BLOODBATH
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SMG. There was a center compartment, probably
loaded with PLO men, then the pilot's cabin up
front, where Rafik would probably ride. The odds
were against me—suddenly the stupidity of my
thinking almost started me laughing. I was bound,
perhaps unable to move because of my injuries, un-
armed and guarded.... Yes. the odds were against
I looked back at Rafik. "
to London in a
slightly different way. I will release the vial over
London—simply drop it from the pilot's window
to smash on the first building or street Or sidewalk
it hits. In hours England and then much of Europe
will be the kingdom of the mad, the insane, and
their cities will be inhabited by ghosts. But you'll
get to see the initial phases of the plan firsthand—
we're dropping you from the plane as well. I almost
wish there were some way to enjoy the fear you'll
feel as you slam toward the earth. You see, we
aren't going to be flying high enough when we
make the drop for the air pressure to collapse your
lungs or harm you. We'll come in at a good
altitude, but we'll cut that in half for the actual
drop. I wouldn't want the high altitude to rob you
of a moment's worth of your sensation of death."
J didn't answer him. I was waiting for the next
inevitable topic of his maniacal speech—I'd heard
it all before. "But we aren't planning to kill the
woman there---" and he gestured with his cigarette,
again purposely flicking the hot ashes down on me.
"The rest of my men will rendezvous with me after
the attack on London. They're tired, have worked
long and hard for success—thirty-four of them, be-
sides the twelve of us aboard the plane." Then he
turned to the girl. "Do you think you can make all
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NICK CARTER
those men happy, my dear? Or will you die in the
attempt?"
He sat on the wooden bench across from me,
leaning forward intently, a cigarette glowing men-
acingly in his fingertips. I could see my Luger
stuffed in the waistband of his trousers. I imagined
he had my stiletto as well. "Personally," he said,
his voice as bright as a schoolboy who's finally
memorized the Gettysburg Address, "things have
worked out perfectly, I think. With you dead—the
pilot for this plane was killed when he first landed
—and the girl with us, there will be no one to teil
AXE or British SIS just who really does have the
Rauffmann notes, who dropped the vial on Lon.
don and started the plague—just marvelous, I
think."
I looked across at Rafik. "Do you mind if I
make a candid remark?"
"Of course," he said, and smiled. "I'm in such a
fine mood, nothing could upset me!"
"Wonderful," I droned. "Have you gone com-
pletcly, irrevocably nuts? I mean"—and I watched
his eyes nash with anger, but he didn't move—
"you were always violent, obsessed with killing,
and maybe a bit deranged, but this thing seems to
have pushed you right off the deep end and I
saw him coming, saw the knife flash in his hand,
felt the scaring pain as it bit across the side of my
neck.
"l could kill you now, Carter," he whispered, his
breath coming in short, foul-smelling gasps close to
my face, "but I want to make you suffer. But
before I push you from the plane I can carve pieces
out Of your body, skin your legs, gouge your eyes
out of their flicked the blade to my
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THE TURKISH BLOODBATH
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left you. I can torture you in a hun-
dred ways you've never even imagined in your
worst nightmares. One more word from your
mouth," he rasped, "and I'll cut out your tongue
and make you swallow it bit by bit."
Either I'd figured Rafik differently than he had
been. or suddenly the newfound power of the
Rauffmann virus being in his possession had
driven him completely insane. I could hear him
raving on about the horrors he'd inflict on me, but
since at the moment I was powerless to stop him,
there was nothing to do but be quiet and listen.
. the Rauffmann notes. With them I can dupli-
cate his formula, inoculate my people against the
disease, then destroy Israel, the Egyptians who
bow so low to the Israelis. I will be master
wanted to ask him quite seriously if he thought
then he would be God, but I already knew the an-
swer and I wasn't anxious to have my tongue cut
out for a rhetorical question.
Rafik turned now to the guard who had been
watching seated in the forward portion of the
compartment, cross-legged on the floor. "You may
take the girl. if you like—I want Carter to see it."
I could hear muffled whimpering from my left
where Irania sat. Rafik stepped back and I watched
—powerless—as the guard put his SMG down
beside him, leaned over Irania, rudely pushed her
legs apart, and began to undo his pants. Rafik
looked at me and laughed, then walked forward.
He turned as he went to enter the center cabin. "Be
quick, Muli. We are over the English Channel now
—soon our work will begin."
It was like a scene from a cheap horror movie
the evil madman, the helpless woman, the hero
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NICK CARTER
—me—unable to do anything to avert the fiend-
ishly evil plan. But instead this was real and in pre-
cious few minutes I would be tossed overboard to
a death I didn't even want to consider, and London
and most of Western Europe would be wiped out
by a plague the likes of which the world had never
experienced, and Irania would be the mouse for
Rafik's men to toy with until she died. I could hear
Hawk now, as death overtook him, saying, S 'Carter
tried."
I closed my eyes—not to evade the horror the
girl was facing at the aft portion of the fuselage—
but to think. My legs were nearly asleep and I tried
to move them, then I felt it. To avoid customs
problems, I'd taped the jeweled dagger Tarbor had
given me to my left leg under a bandage.
I could almost see the lionine old man urging me
to use it somehow to save the Gypsy girl and
avenge his murder. And by God I would!
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Chapter Nineteen
I opened my eyes. I knew what I had to do—the
how of it was the only puzzle. I forced myself to
watch as the one Rafik had called "Muli" began to
rape Irania. She was helpless against him, her
wrists bound behind her, her mouth taped shut. I
could hear her labored breathing. I could smell
Muli. It was now or never. I forced my back
straight against the fuselage wall, dropping my
hands as low as possible, my injured right wrist
seeming to scream at me in protest. Rafik had been
so clever.. . There was almost an inch and a half
of chainlink between the cuffs, and that was all the
extra room I needed; had he used rope instead of
handcuffs I would have been stuck.
I forced my hands against the cuffs for the max-
imum width, and started to push my rear end be-
tween my arms. My bound feet served to confound
me as I contorted my body into a scissors posture,
forcing my cuffed hands now down under my legs
and forward. I hoped Irania could see what I was
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doing and that somehow Muli's attention wouldn't
waver. The cuffs were down to just behind my
ankles now. I looked up—Muli had turned and
was staring at me.
He started pulling himself to his feet, fumbling at
his trousers. My hands, still cuffed together, were
already in front of me. I tore at my left trouser leg,
got my hands to Tarbor's knife, and ripped the
adhesive covering it away, nailing my skin as I did,
half-cutting the bandage away with the edge of the
dagger as I withdrew it.
I pushed myself onto my bound feet and hurled
myself toward Mulit the knife in my outstretched,
manacled hands. Muli started to dodge—I was
powerless to change the direction of my fall, but I
could see Irania moving, her legs sweeping in be-
hind Muli. Suddenly I was on him and Tarbor's
dagger drove deep into his right shoulder. He fell
away and I rolled from on top of him.
Frantically, I hacked at the rubber belt around
my ankles as Muli dragged himself toward the sub-
machinegun inches from his hands. My legs untied
—-1 didn't know still if I could walk—I fell onto his
back and hammered the knife down into him again
and again until all movement beneath me stopped.
I pushed myself up and then fell, my legs still
numb. Again I got to my feet and grasped the
SMG that had been Muli's. I inched over to Irania,
using the ribs of the fuselage to steady me. Pain
and loss of blood were making me light-headed—I
had no way to tell how long it would be before I
passed out.
I reached the girl and collapsed beside her.
Twisting her around roughly, I inspected the
bonds on her wrists. They were rope only and I cut
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THE TURKISH BLOODBATH
187
them away with Tarbor's dagger. I saw her stare at
it. "Tarbor's," I whispered. "He gave it to me
before he died—God bless him."
I looked to the tape on her mouth and stayed her
hand when she tried to remove it. "No, wait. If you
rip that away or if I do you could be scarred for
life. At the least it would peel away a layer or so of
skin and leave you badly blistered. If we make it
out of this a doctor can do a less painful job. Can
you breath well enough?"
She nodded, the look of fear gone now from her
eyes. "We're not out of the woods yet." Far from
it, I thought.
I made my way to Muli and found his pistol—a
grossly mistreated Government Model .45 Colt au.
tomatic, a vintage 1911 model with the flat main-
spring housing. I turned to Irania as I checked the
pistol's mechanism and its magazine. I handed the
gun to her, the hammer cocked and the thumb
safety up. "If you need to shoot, push down the
safety, here," and I showed her, "and keep the web
of your hand clear of the slide. There are seven
rounds in the magazine and there's one in the
chamber. Just hardball ammo, so it should feed re-
liably. Use no more than seven rounds to defend
yourself. If it goes against us in the next few
minutes and you want to kill yourself, fire the
eighth one into your head." I leaned toward her
and held her bruised and dirty face in my manacled
hands for a moment.
She was trying to say something through the
cruel tape covering her mouth. I fancied that I un-
derstood it---"I love you Nick,"
I kissed her forehead and whispered, "I love
you." And at that moment, at least, I did.
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I searched Muli for a key to the handcuffs—
there was none. If his Uzi SMG were to jam it
would be almost impossible to clear it with my
hands manacled close together, but there was no
choice left to me. I snatched a glance out one Of the
portholes—I could see suburban London below in
the distance.
My head was buzzing and I almost sank to the
floor. I steadied myself, then turned and looked
back at Irania. In minutes Rafik would drop the
vial. I pulled myself together, summoning what re-
serves of strength and will I still had left to me. I
stood quietly just on our side of the compartment
door, observing the lock. There was no way to tell
if it were bolted on the other side or not. It likely
wasn't.
I fired a burst from the Uzi into the lock, then
kicked the door through and stepped into the cen-
ter compartments There were nine of the PLO
gunmen there. Few had weapons close at hand. I
fired mercilessly into them, cutting some of the ter-
rorists down before they could reach their sub-
machineguns. Then the return fire started coming.
My hands were responding, the Uzi was firing, but
I was in a daze, my head throbbing, my knees
weak. Bullets were whizzing around me and I kept
firing. There were three gunners still standing, as
far as I could make out. A slug tore into my left
arm and I wheeled, a burst from my Uzi going wild
and smashing out one of the portholes.
It was almost as though subconscious reflex was
guiding me now—the window was suddenly
smashed, we'd depressurize for perhaps a minute
or a minute and a half, and anything not anchored
down would be sucked out of the window of the
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THE TURKISH BLOODBATH
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plane. I opened my fingers and let the Uzi subgun
fly from my grasp through the window. The sound
of rushing air was like a tornado in the confined
space. As my own shattered body started to be
drawn forward by the depressurization, I hooked
the chain linking of the handcuffs on my wrists
against a seat back frame, the cabin pressure tug-
ging at my feet and legs. But the handcuffs saved
my life.
Suddenly the rushing wind 'stopped—either the
pressure had equalized completely or the pilot had
descended rapidly. My stomach was churning, I
could feel blood trickling down from my ears and
nose. I slumped to the floor, wiped my forearm
across my face, and my arm came away covered
with blood. The PLO gunmen were gone, all except
one of them, at any rate. He was dead, though, his
body solidly wedged at a grotesque angle between
two of the seats.
I hauled myself to my feet. Tarbor's dagger was
still in my trouser band under my belt. My Uzi was
gone—with all the other submachineguns and the
seat cushions, everything—sucked out the window.
I searched the dead man. My luck was running
bad. He didn't have a gun or a knife.
leaned against a seat frame, rubbing my eyes
with my hands to try and clear my head.
In seconds, Rafik would come through the door
from the pilot's cabin here into the center compart-
ment. Or would he guess that all was lost and at.
tempt to drop the vial now—I checked the porthole
—over the London suburbs. I gambled he'd wait
the extra two or three minutes—he'd want to drop
it in the center of the city, more for the sake of his
monumental ego than any added effect of the virus.
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Sitting there on the bare aluminum framework,
my eyes scanned the cabin for anything to possibly
use as an added weapon. If there were time I could
dismantle one of the seat frames and have a club, I
thought.
There was nothing else.
I could feel the plane descending. Another look
through the gaping. windowless porthole con-
firmed that. If Rafik didn't come through that
door for me now, I'd have to go in after him.
I looked up when I heard the noise. The door
was starting to open. There was no choice but to
fling myself toward it, Tarbor's dagger springing
into my right hand—my only chance.
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Chapter Twenty
As Rafik stepped through the door I was on him.
The butt of the SMG in his hands snaked up to-
ward my groin and I fell back, managing to smash
the handcuffs I still wore down onto his head
before I fell. I looked up as Rafik reeled from the
blow, his submachinegun clattering to the floor.
The dagger Tarbor had given me was in my right
hand. I clamped both fists around its hilt to in-
crease the force of my thrust and pushed myself
toward him, the knife biting deep into his thigh.
Rafik backhanded me across the mouth and I
fell away, the knife lost, lodged deep in his leg. He
was going for the Mauser Schnellfeur pistole in the
shoulder holster under his coat. Again, I hauled
myself to my feet and fell on him, raining blows
from my manacled hands on his head and face. His
hands came at my throat, abandoning his gun in
his fury. As his fingers tightened on my neck. I
hammered both fists sideways into his abdomen,
then raised my right knee and smashed at his groin.
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We went down, his hands still locked in a death-
grip on my throat. Despite my weakness from loss
of blood, because my wrists were shackled together
Rafik couldn't pin my arms. On top of me now, his
fingers still at my throat, I hammered both fists
again and again into his groin. Finally, his grip re-
laxed as he moved one of his hands to attempt to
protect himselt
I rolled from under him and he was on my back,
his hands at the back of my head, fingers knotted
into my hair. smashing my face against the floor. I
could feel blood pouring from my nose and mouth.
I reached up behind me—both hands grasping
for some hold on him. His face—I could touch it!
I hooked my right thumb in his mouth, felt his
teeth grinding down on me. but it didn't matter by
then. I was going to kill Rafik! t balled my right
fists against the pressure of my right thumb
through his cheek and ripped.
His scream was as intense as if someone had sud-
denly castrated him. kicked up toward his groin
with my right foot and Rafik doubled over in pain.
Something was surging in • me now—I wanted
Rafik dead! I wanted Rafik to die now! I pulled
myself to my feet and smashed my hands at his face
and head like a club, the pain of the blows ham-
mering at my injured wrist, but beating him down.
Rafik fell to his knees and I smashed my right
knee into his mouth. I used my hands in a glancing
uppercut and caught his throat in a lethal blow
with the edge of my handcuffs. Rafik fell back.
then rolled over.
I felt through his pockets—the handcuff key.
Tiny, hard to maneuver. but after a few seconds I
had loosed one of the bracelets, then with my free
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THE TURKISH BLOODBATH
193
hand undid the other. My wrists were raw and
bleeding, my right wrist blackened from the swell.
ing and the constriction of the blood.
I rolled Rafik over, ripped Wilhelmina the Luger
from his trouser band, then checked the magazine
and the chamber. He'd reloaded with one of my
spares apparently. Feeling further through his
pockets I retrieved Hugo the stiletto as well. My
wallet, my lighter—and yes, my cigarettes. The
half-empty package was crumpled and misshapen,
but I fished one of the cigarettes from it and
straightened it as best I could, then lit it. As I drew
the smoke into my lungs, for a moment the light-
headedness started to come back, and I rolled back
to a seated position beside his body to rest for a
moment and clear my head.
One more to go—the pilot. For all I knew at this
instant he could have realized that Rafik had
bought it, and then follow what was perhaps
Rafik's last order to him—drop the vial. What if
Rafik had dropped it already? But no, the plane
hadn't changed direction as far as I could tell. I
hauled myself to my feet. I should have warned
Irania to prepare for a possible crash, but there
wasn't time.
Wilhelmina in my fist, I turned the latch on the
pilot's cabin door, then stepped inside. It was like
a panorama, frozen for an instant in time. The
pilot's hand was out the window, the vial ready to
be dropped. My cigarette fell from my cracked lips.
I swatted the Luger down against the PLO pilot's
neck and threw myself across his body and over the
controls, my left hand groping through the small
triangular window for his hand, which held the vial
ready to release.
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NICK CARTER
The plane started into a dive and I fell forward
across the windshield, my left hand clenched now
over his on the other side of the window. I couldn't
pin his arm and, as we wrestled over it, the bottle
slapped hard against the side of the planes The
9mm Parabellum Luger was still in my right fist
and I twisted my gun hard into the pilot's abdomen
and fired the gun until it jammed against his
clothes, the bucking of the short-range hits against
the solidness of his body finishing what usefulness
there had been left in my right wrist.
The pilot's grip on the bottle didn't lessen when
he died, but I was finally able to wrench the now-
limp arm back in through the window. pried his
dead fingers open. and I had the vial.
Turning my head toward the windshield I was
pressed against, I could see the ground speeding up
toward us. Fighting the G-forces, I pushed myself
away from the window, and leaning backward
against it tried to wrench the pilot's body from his
seat. It wouldn't budge.
I found Hugo clumsily with my left hand and
slashed at the seatbelt holding the lifeless body in
position. Cut through, I pushed the pilot's body
away and climbed behind the controls.
The throttle was all the way forward. I couldn't
haul it back with just my left hand and my right
hand was useless from the damage to my wrist. I
leaned into the controls, hooked my forearm
through them, and pulled.
The nose was starting to come up. I could hear
the starboard engine sputtering, but worrying
wouldn't help that. I gunned them both, giving the
plane everything it had, and almost miraculously
we pulled out of it—less than a few hundred feet
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THE TURKISH BLOODBATH
195
above the power lines and trees and building tops
below. I worked the elevators and started climbing
to get some flying space, settled in at six thousand
feet, and suddenly remembered to breathe.
I couldn't risk the auto pilot over the metropoli-
tan London area. It was impossible to go check on
Irania—l had to content myself with the hope that
she'd survived both the depressurization and the
dive.
I twirled the radio dial until I found an active
frequency with an English-sounding voice, then I
cut in. "This is Nick Carter. I'm an agent for US.
Intelligence. Calling Heathrow Airport. Over."
After a second a voice came over the speaker.
"Be serious, bloke. You realize you could get in
trouble for using the radio for a practical joke?
Over."
I was laughing. Bleeding, bruised, my lungs
burning from the apparently cracked ribs, the
lungs punctured for all I knew, and I could barely
see out of my left eye. I'd killed so many men this
day that I'd lost count.
The guy on the radio was right. I could get in
trouble.
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Chapter Twenty-One
Sometimes, looking up at the ceiling of an am-
bulance can give one a remarkably comforting feel-
ing. With the way my luck had been running, I'd
half-expected the KGB to have taken over Heath-
row Airport, or the cargo plane's consumptive-
wounding starboard engine to cut out completely,
or the landing gear to stick. But none of that hap-
pened, thankfully. Heathrow Airport Traffic Con-
trol stacked its heavy regular traffic while my emer-
gcncy landing was in progress. I finally touched her
down—not a perfect landing by far—safely, then
taxied to the fat end of the main runway, where
several ambulances, firetrucks, a U.S. Embassy
staff car, and several police cars and vans were all
converging to meet me.
I switched off and took another glance down
onto the airfield. I could see my British colleague
Hudson rushing from a police van with two lean,
jittery-looking men beside him, the two men be-
tween them carrying a large black trunk that
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looked like a bomb disposal container. I stood up
painfully and moved out of the pilot's cabin and
toward the center compartment, then fiddled with
the hatch for a few seconds until I figured how it
opened, unlocked it, and slid it aside.
Hudson was waiting not three feet from the open
hatch, the bomb trunk now on the runway beside
him, the technicians standing beside it looking
more than a little overwrought. "Thank God
you're alive, Nick," Hudson said.
I nodded. I'd lit a cigarette when I'd touched
down, and it was hanging from the left corner of
my mouth. I held my right hand gingerly at my
side. My shirt was torn to shreds, and what was left
of it was darkly stained with blood. My face felt
puffy and stiff, and I imagined it was bruised and
swollen. And my left eye was still half-closed. I
looked down at the Luger uncharacteristically in
my left hand, then looked back at Hudson. "So
you think I'm alive, huh? Just an illusion, pal.
shoved the Luger into my belt and reached in my
left pants pocket for the Rauffmann virus. I bent
down and put it in his hand.
"My God, man. you had this in your pocket?"
Hudson was visibly shocked. "Is this what I think
"Yes, it is what you think it is," I said. The wind
was blowing strong, and its coolness was having a
marked effect on me—I was going to pass out
soon. "And, yes, I had it in my pocket—guess that
wasn't too smart, but I'm not thinking too terribly
clearly just now."
left the hatch for a moment and went forward
to the pilot's cabin and retrieved the attaché case
with Rauffmann's notes and the vial of the serum
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NICK CARTER
that protected against the Rauffmann virus. Re-
turning to the center cabin, I passed the case down
to Hudson. "The vial of the antigen or whatever it
should be called and Rauffmann's notes—many
happy returns to you."
I could hear Hudson saying behind me, "Where
are you going?" but I didn't stop to answer him. It
was more important to attend to Irania before I
passed out. I stepped into the rear compartment.
Irania wasn't moving. For one horrible moment I
thought that she had used the .45 on herself, but as
I looked more closely I could see she was only un-
conscious. I knelt to feel her pulse, and it was ter-
ribly weak. The dark bruise on the side of her fore-
head by her right temple told the story—during de-
pressurization or perhaps during the nosedive
she'd been injured.
I hauled myself to my feet and went back
through the door toward the main hatch. Hudson
was nowhere in sight, the two bomb men were clos-
ing their trunk, presumably with the Rauffmann
virus inside. I didn't have the heart to tell them I
doubted that a bomb disposal trunk would do any
good against the virus. A car was pulling up at the
edge of my peripheral vision as I hailed one of the
ambulances waiting there on the tarmac runway.
"I've got an injured girl inside—can you get to her
fast?" I shouted.
As I started back toward her, the white-coated
ambulance men right behind me, turned and saw
Hawk stepping out of the car that had just pulled
up. One of the ambulance men was saying to me,
"You look as though you might need some atten-
tion yourself, sir—
I cut him off, snapping at him unnecessarily.
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"Not until that girl is cared for."
199
I ignored Hawke now standing beside the
fuselage, and followed the medics to the rear of the
plane and stood there—my knees shaking, my fore-
head bathed in sweat as they strapped Irania be-
tween the sheets of a metal-framed stretcher and
began to carry her out.
I watched as they put her aboard an ambulance
that had backed up to the hatch, then figuring
there was nothing more I could do to help her,
turned to Hawk.
"Where is it?" Hawk asked.
I looked at him a moment, lighting a cigarette
with great difficulty against the rising wind, noting
the cigar in the corner of his mouth and thankful
for the fresh air that was keeping me from smelling
it. "I gave the Rauffmann virus, the Rauffmann
notes, and the Rauffmann antitoxin," I said, drag-
ging heavily on the cigarette and trying to keep
from swaying too much against the fuselage, "to
Hudson and his bomb-disposal men."
I expected Hawk to say "fine" or "okay" or
something. I was starting to see that kind of golden
wash that comes over your eyes that makes your
vision blurred and fuzzy just before you faint. ln-
stead of hearing Hawk say anything commen.
datory, I heard him say, "Nick—then you didn't
get that last dispatch I sent to Major Tufik at Turk-
iSh Intelligence HQ—my God, Hudson's a Soviet
agent e" I couldn't control the shivering, the cold
sweat, the fuzzy vision, none of it, any longer. I
think I remember that Hawk helped break my fall
when I stumbled from the fuselage, murder burn-
ing in my heart....
... you could count the dots in each panel of the
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ceiling squares there in the ambulance, at least you
could until the pretty red-haired woman put the
needle into your arm and smiled at you and you
winked back but your eyes didn't open again
I didn't see much of anyone the first day or so in
the hospital. I slept a great deal and was under the
influence of painkillers. Surprisingly, I discovered,
the red-haired woman (my doctor) pronounced my
most serious, injury to be a badly sprained right
wrist, possibly a pulled tendon. But none of my
bones were broken. My ribs had been badly
banged up, but weren't even cracked. There was a
chance I was suffering from a mild concussion, and
the doctor treated me as though I were. But by the
morning of the third day, aside from an insatiable
desire at times to scratch a bandage-covered itch, I
felt fit. Since noon of the previous day, I'd been
working with one of those spring-type grip for-
tifiers for my left hand, figuring I'd be likely to do
my shooting with my left hand for a little while.
And that proved to be a very solid idea, I found
out, after Hawk and I passed over the amenities
and he got down to business. A nurse had told me
my "chief' would be there at nine and I'd conned
her into putting up an "Oxygen In Use—No Smok-
ing" sign bymy bed. I couldn't smoke, but at least
I didn't have to worry about Hawk and his noxious
cigars that way either.
"After you gave the Rauffmann virus and the
notes to Hudson, we cordoned off this island as
tight as a vacuum bottle—nothing. But theriwe got
lucky. Hudson made a contact with the IRA, offer-
ing them a half million dollars in KGB funds to get
him out of the country. British SIS had the Soviet
Embassy and all the incoming flights and ships to-
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THE TURKISH BLOODBATH
201
tally blanketed and apparently they did a good
enough job that the KGB couldn•t get someone in
to get Hudson or the Rauffmann materials out,"
Hawk went on. "So Hudson, either on his own in-
itiative or with the advice of KGB, contacted the
IRA people here in London."
"What's so lucky about Hudson contacting the
IRA?" I asked. wishing I could smoke.
"Because Iris Flannery hadn't been able to get
herself smuggled out of England yet, and she was
still with them when Hudson made the contact
with Tommy Flynn, the IRA chief here." Hawk
looked wistfully at the "No Smoking" sign and
moved uncomfortably in the bedside chair.
"And," I said, "Iris Flannery isn't really a gun-
runner for the IRA or even a fund raiser—she's a
plant. One of ours?"
"No, FBI actually, but working with us since
FBI has no overseas authority." Hawk continued,
"When the opportunity came for her to actually
get inside Rafik's PLO group and the London sec-
tion of the IRA, nobody wanted to pass it up."
"How'd you find out Hudson was KGB in the
first place?" I asked.
Hawk smiled at that. "Well, we suspected some-
thing from the setup he made for you at the aban-
doned London movie lot with Rafik's PLO people
—sending you into the fog to reconnoiter sounded
more than stupid on his part." Hawk was right, of
course. I hadn't wanted to criticize Hudson for a
bad play, but the thought that perhaps he was
trying to get me killed hadn't crossed my mind,
either.
"Why would Hudson have wanted me dead back
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"Simple," Hawk replied. "He was already aware
of the Rauffmann affair, we found out later. Brit-
iSh SIS has a larger network in the Black Sea area
than we do—in fact, they have a man at the Rus-
Sian germ warfare center there. Fortunately,
Hudson doesn't know that, at least, or the man
would be as good as dead. The British had discov-
ered some sort of leak several months ago—
Hudson was apparently entrapped after com-
promising himself on the Official Secrets Act with
a Soviet woman, then got himself in with KGB
deeper and deeper. But apparently Hudson figured
if he used the legitimate raid against Rafik's meet-
ing with the IRA as a cover to have you killed,
since the U .S. and the British were working togeth-
er, he'd replace you himself, be sent after the Rauf-
fmann virus, and then he could either lose it back
to the Russians in a seemingly innocuous manner
or get himself on the other side of the Iron Curtain
—we're not sure which. But if he'd gotten you
killed, he would have been the only logical man—
speaks Russian, Turkish, superb pistol shot,
marvelous track record in the field—a top agent."
"But how'd you finally prove it?" I asked.
"That he was a double agent? Simple enough,"
Hawk answered. "We fed our communiqués to you
in Turkey through British SIS and used Hudson as
the liaison. Our man in KGB at the Kremlin—a
good man, by the way—notified us that KGB re-
ceived the messages before you did. And, I pure
posely had the messages written so the text would
have to be reworded to conform with the code the
British would use to transmit them to Turkish Se-
cret Service people. But the messages received at
the Kremlin were verbatim—exactly what I'd given
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THE TURKISH BLOODBATH
203
to Hudson, not decoded interceptions. We started
to close in on Hudson twelve hours before you ar-
rived here and sent a message to you via Turkish
Intelligence so you'd know Hudson was KGB—
but you never received it because you'd already
parted company with Major Tufik."
"And Hudson still had the connections to get
out to the airport and without being spotted?
"KGB intercepted your transmission to the air-
port," Hawk said. '*In fact, they had monitored
your flight ever since it left Yugoslavia. The KGB
would have grabbed Rafik and taken back the vi-
rus if they'd reached the airfield on time, but Rafik
had already taken off. The KGB was apparently
right on your tail then. And they didn't dare shoot
the plane down and start a plague, since the only
copy of Rauffmann's notes and the only vial of
antitoxin were on board as well. The KGB would
have rather risked England and Western Europe
get annihilated, gambling that the virus wouldn't
have reached as far as the Soviet Union. So they
decided to gamble on Hudson if the Rauffmann
materials ever got onto the ground. I guess the
KGB had a lot of confidence in your abilities:"
"And my stupidity in giving the Rauffmann ma-
terials to Hudson," I commented bitterly* "So,
being such a good agent, he just bluffed his way
through to me, but then he figured he couldn't risk
trying for an immediate commercial flight out of
the country."
"Which leads me to why I'm telling you this,"
Hawk said. "I realize you feel badly about Hudson
just walking away with the virus after all you went
through. And," he said, lowering his voice with a
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NICK CARTER
seeming air of reluctance, "you're still the best
agent I've got—even with a bad gunhand," and he
gestured toward my bandage-swathed right wrist.
"You set a trap for Hudson using the Flannery
"Right," he said, smiling. "And I want you to
spring it. You alone until it blows, and then we'll
call in all the help we can muster—the British and
ourselves agree we can't risk another leak* Hudson
is supposed to meet with Flynn and a half dozen Of
Flynn's IRA men tonight. The Flannery girl will be
with them because she's scheduled to start out on
thc same escape route that Hudson will use. He'll
maybe have those two men with him who posed as
the bomb disposal officers, maybe not. That hasn't
been firmed up yet, we understand. Can you kill
Hudson, get the Rauffmann materials back one
more time, and try to save Iris Flannery—for all
intents and purposes, by yourself?"
I had no choice—this problem was largely of my
own making to begin with, and if Hudson did get
behind the Iron Curtain with the Rauffmann virus,
everything I'd done so far would be for nothings I
reached over and tore down the "Oxygen In Use—
No Smoking" sign, and lit a cigarette.
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Chapter Twenty-Two
This would end it, one way or the other. To-
night, here, right now. I sat there, my face black.
ened with a camouflage stick, black-cloth fingerless
gloves on my hands, and a set of black clothes cov-
ering my body head to foot.
Before leaving the hospital in the early after-
noon, I'd checked and found that Irania was being
released as well. If all went well, I'd see her tonight
or the next morning after this was through, and in
case all didn't go well, I'd already set things up
with Hawk to get her started toward British resi-
dency and eventual citizenship, as well as aiming
her toward the schooling she sought. What a
marvelous girl, I thought, and I was still thinking
Of her until a spasm of chills brought me back to
the reality of the moment. I was far up the coast,
the cold Channel waters lapping against the
shoreline not fifty yards from my position. I
checked my watch. In about five minutes, the IRA
group with Iris Flannery, led by Tommy Flynn,
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NICK CARTER
would be there, and so would Hudson. Flynn and
his party were coming by launch and would take
Hudson and the girl to the Irish coast, then another
trip by launch from there for Hudson alone to a
Soviet trawler standing by, where the payoff mon-
cy would be exchanged. Iris would be stuck in Ire-
land until the heat was off. Very simple for Flynn,
I thought, since he had the reputation for almost
being capable of being two places at once—Lon-
don and the Irish back country. Flynn was like a
ghost, some said, the way he could slip in and out
of England totally undetected.
And the legend was supported by fact—Flynn
was a geographer by trade, and had been responsi-
ble for a coastal geographic survey some years
earlier that had been hailed at the time as sheer
brilliance. Apparently it had been. for Flynn cer-
tainly knew the English coast better than any other
man alive—any inlet, no matter how small, was
part of his intimate knowledge, and with the way
the English authorities searched for him so unsuc-
cessfully, Flynn had proved capable of using that
knowledge to his excellent advantage as a terrorist.
Wilhelmina was holstered safely under my left
arm—still available, though somewhat awkwardly,
to my left hand if need be. Rather than being in the
usual spot up my right sleeve, Hugo, the stiletto,
was lashed to my belt for access with my left hand
—my right was still all but useless.
I had a Korean War vintage silenced Sten, one of
the best 9mm submachinegun/silencer combina-
tions ever devised. The Sten would be my primary
weapon. If we could have risked the leak, it would
have been easy to close in on Flynn, Hudson, and
the entire group. But both the IRA and the KGB
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THE TURKISH BLOODBATH
could easily have had wires into the British author.
ities, and one whisper of any armed force near the
projected meeting sight and it would be cancelled
or moved, and likely Iris Flannery would be killed.
I! Flynn were as crafty as he was reported to be,
he'd guess the Flannery girl was the likely infor-
mant and an unsubstantiated guess would be all
the excuse he would need to liquidate her. He'd
murdered for less provocation—numerous or-
phans could swear to it.
It was a tricky plan that we had, and one that
relied on mechanical apparatus as well—in short,
almost anything could go wrong and pit me against
close to a dozen heavily armed professionals with
no help to back me up.
And then saw Flynn coming in the prow of a
small launch smoothly cutting around rock out-
croppings and aiming its way toward the beach
below me. The bright moonlight made the evening
so clear that I could almost read the serial number
on the Sten gun clenched in my left fist.
From my right, clambering down along a rocky
path to the water's edge, were three men, all
dressed in dark slacks and dark windbreakers, un-
identifiable submachinegun shapes held at the
ready—it had to be Hudson and the two "bomb
disposal" men.
My vantage point in a bare rock cave entrance
on the high ground afforded a perfect view as the
two groups met, Flynn and all but one of his men
wading through the breakers onto the beach,
Hudson and his men waiting there for them, the
waves washing their shoes. I could see Hudson
shifting a briefcase into his left arm, holding it
clumsily along with the SMG he carried, then of-
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NICK CARTER
fering his right hand to Flynn. Flynn didn't move
to clasp it—apparently nothing in the world would
get him to shake hands with a former British Secret
Service man, even though now Hudson was a tem-
porary ally.
I glanced down at my watch—Flynn and
Hudson were right on time. I got myself to my feet,
barely supporting the muzzle of my Sten gun with
my injured right wrist, ready to trigger the silenced
subgun with my left hand. I stepped closer to the
mouth of the cave so I'd be in plain view, located
the small black box there with my right foot, and
rested the toe of my combat boot so that it almost
touched the plunger-type switch the black box
housed.
"Freeze!" I shouted. The men down on the
beach turned and looked up toward me, not mov-
ing for a second or so. I could finally see Iris Flan-
nery—they'd left her in the boat with their engine
man. "This is Nick Carter of American Intelligence
—we've got you surrounded. Give up peacefully!"
I hoped my voice didn't sound as unconvincing to
them as it did to me. But the delay was necessary.
I had to buy a few seconds for Iris Flannery or
she'd be dead.
"So," I heard Flynn shouting, "it's the famous
fella Nick Carter, is it? My goodness, I suppose we
should just throw up our hands and beg for mercy,
now, shouldn't we?" I knew what was coming, but
I let him talk—it was just buying more time for Iris
Flannery. "But on the other hand, old Nick, I'm
sure you'll understand that we can't quite do that
Flynn's subgun roared up at me as he turned
and ran through the breakers straight for the
launch. Hudson started to follow as the others
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THE TURKISH BLOODBATH
there on the beach opened fire at me.
I began to return the fire with my Sten gun, but
shooting high to avoid hitting the girl aboard the
launch. punched the toe of my right combat boot
down hard on the black box's plunger. Then every-
thing happened at once. I could see the girl—Iris
Flannery—ramming a small object against her
right thigh. I knew that it was a self-injection of the
mixture of atropine and tetrathiazide. I'd just had
a fresh booster injection myself hours earlier. The
plunger in the black box had activated twin elec-
trical series circuits that simultaneously were deto-
nating the dozens of gas bombs identical to but
only much larger than Pierre, the gas bomb, which
I usually carried secured behind my scrotum. And
each bomb was releasing now its deadly mixture of
compressed hydrachlorsarsomasine, an almost in-
stantly fatal nerve gas.
Like me, Iris Flannery would be unaffected.
That was why I'd stalled, to give the girl time to get
the needle ready that had been smuggled to her
earlier that day. There'd been no way to know for
certain if she'd actually gotten it in time or been
able to inject herself, but then the whole operation
had been one big gamble from the start.
I could see Tommy Flynn struggling through the
waves toward the girl aboard the launch. As he just
reached it—the girl ready for him with a subgun in
her hands—Flynn collapsed, the waves washing
over him. The firing from the beach was dying and
I looked back. The IRA men gnd Hudson's men
were going down. A moment later the beach was
silent except for the crashing of the waves along the
rocks and the sandy shore.
I started down the rockface toward the beach,
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NICK CARTER
looking for Hudson and the briefcase. Neither was
anywhere in sight. For an instant I had a horrible
thought—I looked out to the launch, but the girl
was alone there. Hudson hadn't reached it. But
even if he had gotten off somewhere before the gas
had killed him, I rationalized, panic starting to rear
its ugly head, Hudson had to be dead by now. I
thought I could make out police sirens far in the
distance, perhaps responding to the gunfire, but
more likely the forces Hawk had had waiting sever-
al miles away along the coast—British government
drug enforcement people ostensibly on a stakeout
for a huge cocaine shipment. Only Hawk and the
head of British SIS knew why the men were really
there—waiting to be my backup if need be, to bail
out the operation if the gas didn't get the IRA peo-
ple and Hudson and his men.
I reached the beach and waved to the girl aboard
the launch—warily she waved back. Almost frantic
now, as I scanned the beach I still couldn't see
Hudson. But then I heard him. "Don't move,
Nick, or you're a dead man. Remember, I've got
nothing to lose. Now, drop the Sten into the sand."
"No, I can't do that, Paul," I shouted back. "I'm
turning around—slowly. No need to shoot yet."
The wind was blowing up harder now. What little
vapor there had been from the nerve gas was total.
ly dissipated. Had the wind been like this a few mo-
ments earlier. my entire plan would have failed
miserably.
I was playing the odds thaf Hudson wanted me
alive for at least a moment—perhaps for longer
than that as a hostage. Otherwise, logicdictated, he
would have shot me by now.
"What do you want, Paul? You've gotthe vial.
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THE TURKISH BLOODBATH
211
the Rauffmann notes, everything. You'll be a big
man in the Kremlin."
I heard him laugh. "Yes, and terribly bigger if I
were to kill you, Nick. Have the girl out there drop
her submachinegun—otherwise she's bought it. I'll
kill her now just as soon as kill her later."
"Like hell I will," I heard her scream.
"You're working under AXE orders. not the
FBI here—drop the damned gun." I glanced over
my shoulder. She tossed the gun into the waves.
"Now stay put unless it looks like its time for a
swim," I shouted. Then ignoring her. I turned back
to face Hudson. Heid moved down out of the rocks
and was standing less than a dozen feet away from
me.
"How'd you surviye the gas?"
"Does that bother you, Nick," he shouted, the
wind rising now to an almost ghostly howl around
us. as though the beach were somehow part of a
giant wind tunnel in Hell.
"Truth? Yeah, it bothers me."
know your file backward and forward. With
you still alive, I thought the possibility of bumping
into you before I left was real, however remote, I
simply shot myself up with atropine and
tetrathiazide—it's all there in the more confidential
portions of your file, you know. My gamble seems
to have paid off."
"What now?" I asked.
"Up to you, Nick—even though we're on other
sides of the fence, still consider you rather a
friend. Drop the gun and you can live."
"What about the girl?" I demanded.
"She has to die—she could tell you the escape
route." Hudson was starting to look as though he
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NICK CARTER
were ready to shoot—I'd ben studying his eyes.
The muzzle of the Uzi SMG he held never wavered
from my chest.
"Then you'll have to kill me, too," I said grimly.
"I know the escape route already." The sirens
seemed close now, at least they were louder, but
with the wind carrying the sound I couldn't tell
how close.
"They don't dare shoot me!" Hudson shouted,
obviously now aware of the sirens as well. "They
could hit the Rauffmann virus."
"I dare to shoot you, Paul," I said, thrusting the
muzzle of my Sten gun forward with my left hand,
my trigger finger twitching back even before I was
on level, my body responding to spring away and
to the left of the muzzle Of his submachinegun. I hit
the ground, the sand around me kicked up against
my face in tiny explosions as Hudson's gun kept
firing. But, my gun kept firing, too. Suddenly,
though, mine was the only one firing. I got to my
knees and started across the wet sand at Hudson.
I'd done the only thing I could—concentrated my
fire on the right side of his body to avoid hitting the
virus in the briefcase clamped under his left arm. I
stood up and walked the ten feet or so and knelt
beside him. I picked up the briefcase—it was un-
damaged and so, I assumed, would be the contents.
The left side of his body was untouched as well—
not a wound. The right side, on the other hand
The sirens stopped, and along the rocks above
me I could see uniformed and plainclothes officers.
As they started down toward the beach, I could see
two more men appearing at the rim of the rock
ledge above. One of them was Hawk and the other
face had to be that would-be anonymous man who
is the current head of the British Secret Intelligence
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THE TURKISH BLOODBATH
213
Service. t shouted over my shoulder, "It's all right,
Miss Flannery—the cavalry is here." And this
time, I wasn't letting go of the Rauffmann virus or
anything else to anyone here but Hawk....
After the police started the cleanup on the beach,
I followed Hawk back up to his ear, Iris Flannery
already having left with a three-piece-suit-type
from the British Foreign Office. When I started
into Hawk's car I found there was a surprise wait-
ing for me—a pleasant one named Kemalla Bokra.
"Miss Bokra just got in tonight to help us out with
some of the operational details," Hawk was saying
as he slid onto the backseat on her other side.
Kemalla looked like the proverbial rose between
two thorns. "Thought I might as well bring her
along," Hawk added.
It was almost impossible to feel comfortable
talking with Kemalla with Hawk sitting there, and
with Hawk doing most of the talking. "I have your
next assignment on taps Nick, but it's not for sever-
al weeks. Think you could use a rest for a while? I
want you to take two weeks and then contact me—
I'll be back in Washington by then, of course, but
you can go through British SIS if you're still over
here. We'll work it out."
"What happens to the Rauffmann virus now?" I
asked.
He hesitated a moment, perhaps because of the
Turkish agent sitting between us, but then
shrugged, saying, "We've agreed that regardless of
its military potential, it will be destroyed—once we
figure out how. That's the basic problem. That
chap I mentioned earlier to you, the Englishman I
told you about when we talked today at the hospi-
For a moment I drew a blank, but then I remem-
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NICK CARTER
bered. "The one who was so well-connw•ted and
had tipped SIST' It was the man the British had
who worked undercover at the Soviet Black Sea
Bacteriological Warfare Labs.
"The very man, Nick. Discovered that if the
Rauffmann virus had ever been released it would
have been unstoppable. Appears Rauffmann
wasn't as smart as he thought. It would eventually
have caused the death of every living mammal on
the face of the earth or under the sea."
Hawk said nothing more.
It was less than an hour's drive to the hotel
where Hawk had sent my things—the Orient Ex-
press passengers and personnel had been re-
markably honest and Irania's and my luggage had
remained aboard the train until Hawk had gotten
them picked upe
Kemalla and I both got out of the car. I was feel*
ing a little awkward, knowing that Irania was wait-
ing for me upstairs. I made a fuss of saying a
lengthy good-bye to Hawk, then standing there out
front of the hotel moments still after he'd lefti hem.
ming and hawing with Kemalla. Finally, she began
to laugh. "I talked with your friend, Irania, when t
first arrived here. That was part of the reason that
I came to England, to question the Turkish na-
tional—she's sort of a Turkish national— who was
involved." Kemalla smiled up at me and I lit a
cigarette for both of us.
"Did you have a nice talk?" I asked.
"Oh, yes," Kemalla said. "Well, after all, I
hadn't realized that both of us knowing you would
give us so much in common, so many similar expe-
riences. Come, upstairs."
We both fell silent as we walked up the steps and
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THE TURKISH BLOODBATH
215
through the brass-framed revolving doors and
across the near-deserted lobby. I got my key at the
disk and we took the elevator to the eighth floor. As
we walked down the hallway toward the room at
the end that matched the number on my key,
Kemalla finally said, "We wanted to find a way—
Irania and l, that is—to kind of get even with you,
but also make you happy. And we found the per-
fect solution."
I was beginning to wonder if I should go into my
room at all. But I did, Kemalla right beside me.
Irania was sitting on the couch across the room
from us, a yellow terry cloth robe all that she wore.
The only illumination in the room was a lamp on
the end table beside her, the smoke from her
cigarette traveling upward into the light and then
disappearing. "Hello, Nick darling," Irania whis-
pered.
I smiled back and nodded. I was beginning to get
the picture. My smile widened as I thought, yes in-
deed, I could get into a lot of trouble....
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