# Singapore Sling

Лев Переводчик Шкловский

ONE

The chair was custom-made, reinforced to take its

wner's weight. It could swivel to cover degrees of the

nique room, and tilt to act as a temporary for a man

ho seldom left that room.

He sat, his huge buttocks filling the oversize chair to

ver-flowing, his meaty hands working at switches and

yboards, his eyes never leaving the countless monitors

at watched over his empire twenty-four hours a day.

The watching had become an obsession. His conglomer-

te of banks, shipping lines, warehousing, and the long list

companies in illicit trade, had tEcome too

oversee in person, and he had tEcome too fat to move

und.

The table was octagonal, the chair in its center. No

reak in the table and its array of controls allowed for the

it of the gargantuan man. For the few hours a day he left

e room, the chair and the floor around it sank slowly to

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the floor below, controlled smoothly by hydraulic cylin-

ders.

Arthur Cecil Chen, a name given to him by Occiden

foster parents, sat in the huge swivel chair. Fat Chen, as h

was known to his enemies, patiently moved beady blac

eyes, set well back in a huge, dome of a skull,

he watched one monitor after the other. Ears, small an

almost concealed by the rolls of fat, listened to countles

conversations. Cameras were set up in every office of an

importance in his vast empire. His key people wore con

cealed cameras designed by an electronics genius under hi

control. He could hear every conversation by merely fli

ping a switch. He could, and did, record and file hundred

of thousands of feet of video tape to use as a lever agains

his enemies. He could interrupt and countermand th

orders of his subordinates in his booming voice, a soun

that filled the room and matched, in decitEIs, the almos

seven hundred m»unds of his weight.

A half dozen of the countless monitors followed robo

sentries as they patrolled the perimeter fence around hi

five-acre estate off Lady Hill Road just north of the Pakis

tani embassy, Chen was a fanatic about security but woul

have no human agents in the house. Human wa

his only fear. He was paranoid about other humans comin

near him. One man served his every need, a small Malay

who had been with Chen for so long he could usually antic

ipate the big man's every wish.

Just as he was about to shake the walls with a bellow f

food, a huge tray descended from the ceiling, covered wi

a multitude of dishes. It stopped a couple of inches abov

the array of keyboards, the aroma from steaming plate

filling the room.

Heu Choy, his man, was an accomplished cook, but h

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often sent out for native dishes. Feeding the monster who

was his master, with all his other duties, was sometimes an

overwhelming task. The tray held a cauldron of soup,

overflowing platters of smoked Szechuan duck on a bed of

fried rice, minced pork with bean curd, lamb in brown

sauce with scallions, steamed chicken in lotus leaves, fried

eel in garlic sauce, plates of stir-fried vegetables, baskets

of fruit.

Fat Chen tied a huge bib around his nonexistent neck to

cover the front of the long loose gown he invariably wore.

While he moved both hands from the dishes to his mouth,

each hand adept at the use of chopsticks, small shovels that

kept a steady stream of food going in one direction, the

man's dark eyes focused on the monitors that were de-

signed for the guarding of his house. A dozen robots

moved in their inexorable patterns, some inside the

grounds, others in the double width of fencing surrounding

the five acres. The two fences, twelve feet apart, were

crisscrossed with laser beams programmed to stop any in-

truder yet allow passage of the wheeled robots on a very

precise computerized program.

Each robot was a marvel—invented by Chen's elec-

tronics genius—impersonal, mobile, and deadly. They

were about four feet tall, traveled on four wheels over any

terrain, and were armed with both laser trams and conven-

tional small arms in domed, rotating heads: four lasers,

three 40mm machine guns. No one had attempted to pene-

trate the fortress. The twin fences were deterrent enough,

but the robots, highly visible, made it impossible to ap-

proach the house by land or air.

fie food was gone in minutes. The tray ascended to the

room above while another descended, providing finger

bowls and a roll of towels.

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NICK CARTER

Finished with his snack, Chen flipped a switch and

broke into a conversation in one of his warehouses. "You

procrastinate," he charged the three men sitting in a corner

office. g 'The two are obviously foreign agents, probably

American, Have you no plans?"

"Kill them, Excellency," one man said.

Chen fumed behind his desk. "You have no imagina-

tion. We want no foreign deaths traced back to us. Fools! I

have fools working for me!"

"What do you propose, Excellency?" another of the men

asked. They were obviously afraid of their employer, of the

hold he had over them. He could have them killed in a

dozen ways, or a few words in the right ear and they would

be jailed for life.

"Set them up. Lead them to Kuala Lumpur. Get them

far from our operation and let the local police there deal

with them," the booming voice attacked their ears.

"If we have your we could lose a kilo, plant

it on them. Do we have your IRI-mission?" the third man

asked, a haunting fear evident in his voice.

"Must it be a whole kilo?"

"Insurance, Excellency. nat much leaves no doubt. Ca-

sual users don't carry a whole kilo."

'Good. What is one kilo if we get them off our backs?

Just do it and make it fast," Chen said, his voice menacing.

"And remember, I am watching you. I won't tolerate fail-

ure in this. They have to go and it Aust be clean. I don't

want this coming back to my doorstep."

"Yes, Excellency," they said, in unison.

Fat Chen cut them off with a flick of a chubby finger,

then flipped another switch. ' 'Farben. Come to the cam-

era."

A thin face appeared on a screen. The man's teeth were

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discolored and stained from cigarettes, and the sparse mus-

tache beneath a long, narrow nose was yellow. His slanted

eyes were rheumy, wet at the corners, bloodshot. Behind

him, a giant of a man, also Chinese, stood mute, his face

dull and expressionless, a human robot, limited but useful

in his own way:

"l want you two observing our operation at the Neil

Road warehouse. My people there have a disposal job. I

don't want any foul-ups. Keep an eye on them."

"Do you have information that will help?" the thin man

asked.

'They will be ridding us of a couple of agents who have

been nosing around. Make sure they do a clean job for us.

Keep out of sight. If it appears they are going to bungle it,

move in and clean up."

The thin man, Farben, needed no further instructions.

He knew what "clean up" meant. Fat Chen, an

the small man never used except within his own thoughts,

had given such orders before. If the Neil Road team blew

it, it was his job to kill them and their quarry. The bodies

would never be found. Ihat had been Chen's way from the

time he had first am:rared in Singapore twenty years ear-

lier, weighing a mere two hundred pounds, filled with a

burning ambition to the richest man in the Far East. It

was still his way and always would be. No loose ends. No

leads back to him.

The two agents sat on separate cots in a cell, isolated

from the other prisoners in the dank sub-basement of the

Justice Building. One was of middle height, well muscled,

his face squared off like a block of granite chiseled to form

facial features. The other was the exact oppsite, slim,

wiry, the smooth face almost txyish.

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"I can't remember ever being so stupid," the young-

looking one said. "We walked right into it. We've had as-

signments like this before and never came close to blowing

it. What the hell

"Don't know," Muscles answered, his elbows on his

knees, his hands holding his head dejectedly. "It's as if

they'd had a camera on our operation from the first. I feel

like we've been orchestrated, you know? We didn't even

have a chance to report back to Bangkok. They won't have

a clue what happened to us."

"Well, in a couple of weeks it won't matter. The judge

made that clear enough. Drug convictions carry the death

here. That's it."

"Did you understand all of it?" Muscles asked. "I'm not

sure our lawyer translated it the way it went down. He

made it sound too damn simple. They found a kilo of her-

oin in our car. They couldn't connect us to any drug ring."

"Didn't matter," the other agent, who sat cross-legged

on the cot like a small Buddha, replied. "Possession was

enough. They've got some kind of law here like the new

'zero tolerance' law being used back home. You're found

with the stuff, you're guilty. Having some in our car was as

bad as if we'd been peddling the stuff for years."

"You know what makes me feel worst?" Muscles said.

"It was being taken so easily, led into a trap like a couple

of rookies, drugged-and left in the car."

"Chen's people. How did they get es to Kuala Lumpur,

do you suppose?"

"In the back seat of our own car, I imagine. They just

drove up here and left us in the front seat. Called the local

police. It doesn't take a genius to figure it out."

"Did the judge say 'hanged by the neck'?"

S mat's what the little bastard said," Muscles re-

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sponded, the cords of his neck standing out as his venom

spilled out. "He was a cold one. No extenuating circum-

stances. I wonder what he'd have done if it had hapB2ned

to his son or a brother"

lhe boyish one sat, small hands folded, head bent as if

in supplication. "Ihe AXE agent blinked rapidly, as if on

the brink of tears. "So it's over." The words were barely

audible, the voice full of emotion, almost choking. "I've

been all over the world for Hawk, done every kind of job

that he asked short of killing. And this is where it ends."

"Jesus! That's all I need," Muscles said, disgusted.

"Don't be so goddamned maudlin. Let's spend our time

figuring out how the hell to get out of here. I don't want to

die in some fuckin' Malaysian prison at the end of a rope!"

"Face it, Barney. Hawk know where we are.

What've we got? Two weeks? Less? No one knows where

we are."

"But he'll make a try at it. No one abducts Hawk's

agents without paying. Someday, some way, Hawk'll fig-

ure it out."

"Let's he figures it out in the next few days." The

dejected agent formed the words without expression. "I

don't want to die."

lhe big man had worn the miniature camera not because

he was intelligent or talented. In fact he was just the oppo-

site. Farben, his narrow-faced boss, moved around too

much, checking his back, watching his surroundings. But

when you told the big man to watch someone, he watched,

immobile, like a rock.

Chen sat in his electronic room and saw his carry

the two agents out to their own car and plant the heroin in

the trunk. He'd watched now and then as they left Singa-

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pore across the Johor Causeway and drove the two hundred

miles into the middle of the peninsula, passing through the

towns of Segamat and Seremban en route to the big city,

Kuala Lumpur.

Farben's partner sat in the courtroom, detached, as the

camera hidden in his clothes ground on, telling the whole

story. Chen had been confident of the outcome. The Ma-

laysians had tunnel vision as far as drugs were concerned.

If you wanted to commit murder in Malaysia today, all you

had to do was plant some drugs on your intended victim,

call the police, and sit back. Bureaucracy took care of the

rest.

Fat Chen switched off when the sentence had been

passed and the two were led away. It was a closed issue

and he had other fish to fry.


Two

*Ihe woman raised herself on one elbow and looked

down at the dark-haired man beside her. They were both

naked. Before they had gone to bed, he had turned the air

conditioning off and opened the sliding doors to the night

air. The moonlight reflected off the Gulf of Mexico into the

room.

She looked at him for tong minutes as if she couldn't get

enough of him. He seemed taller than his six-feet-one

frame as he stretched out tBide her. His face in rem)se

seemed softer when he was asleep. Awake, the strong fea-

tures came alive with vitality and the dark eyes ICM)ked at

her, sometimes with intensity, sometimes with laughter, all

crinkled at the edges.

His body was tanned, but the collection of scars he'd

picked up over the years showed through, slightly less

brown, shiny in places, slightly puckered in others.

She had not asked him about them. She guessed he'd been

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NICK CARTER

a soldier, perhaps a mercenary, but that didn't fit the pat-

tern of their few days together. He dressed well, looked

better than most men in a tuxedo, played cards with her

men friends with an expertise she'd seldom seen, and fasci-

nated her female friends with a knowledge of subjects that

seemed endless.

They'd made love often and the ecstasy she'd felt

seemed to grow with each encounter. He was an expert

lover. He seemed to know all the right places to touch her,

and knew how to bring her along at a pace that maximized

her pleasure. nen, as if his instincts were perfect, he

knew when to take her to the peak of passion and hold her

there for long minutes while she felt sensations rush

through her she had never felt before.

It was the kind of treatment that made slaves of women.

She knew that. But she also realized that he was the kind of

man she couldn't keep with her much longer. Still, she had

to try, to travel with him to the heights as many times as

possible before he left her. And when he did leave, she

would follow if it were at all

Eloise Harper was an individual of many talents. She

was the only woman who had txen acceptted into the

closed society of the frontons. Jai alai was her game. She'd

played it as hard as any man and was rated as one of thé

best. Her father, a Longboat Key real estate developer who

could afford to indulge her every whim, built a structure

resembling a jai alai fronton for her next to the tennis

courts on their estate on Florida's Gulf Coast. It was con-

structed of cement, rectangular, open on one side and with

no roof. It seemed to be half again as long as a tennis

court.

Nick Carter had been a natural pupil. In the few days he

had been with her, she had fitted him with a cesta, the

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player's catching and throwing basket. It was strapped to

his right arm and extended in a graceful curve. like an

oversize bread basket shagrd like a quarter moon. It ex-

tended about thirty inches his wrist. She taught him

many of the complicated moves of the best players. The

skills he quickly seemed to center around accu-

racy and pace. He could place the small rcw•k-hard ball

anywhere he wanted and with the exact to either

blow past his opponent or set her up with a soft shot. The

long, curved basket strapc:ui to his right arm seemed a part

of him already. Given time, she knew she could make him

one of the best.

Caner his eyes. The woman's face was close to

his, her long blond hair sweeping across his torso, her

breath a whisper of air that moved the hair on his chest.

She was lovely, her body perfect, her breasts jutting and

proud, her legs long and muscular without detracting from

her femininity. She was strong, stronger than most women

he met, but it was not evident until she needed the strength

to challenge him in bed or on the fronton court.

lhe ha7ßl eyes looked into his and the message was

plain. She was insatiable. He didn't know how long he'd

slept, but she was ready for him again. He felt relaxed for

the first time in weeks, able to close his eyes and let sleep

take him without fear of an enemy attack. It was exactly

what he'd needed.

He raised his head and kissed her softly on the lips.

"Relax," he said, reaching to the night table for his ciga-

rettes. He flipped two from the pack, lit them with his gold

lighter, and slipped one between her lips. "We should have

plenty of time."

He knew the statement was more of a vain hope than a

certainty. He could be called at any moment and their brief

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encounter would be over. No sooner had the thought oc-

curred...

"Don't answer it," she said, as the phone rang insis-

tently. She seemed to sense, as he did, that it was the signal

for parting.

Carter reached for the receiver and recognized the simu-

lated voice of the computer that Hawk had installed a cou-

ple of years earlier. Recently some clown at the agency had

programmed the damned thing to track him down and pass

along orders. He'd have preferred the warm voice of

Ginger Bateman, David Hawk's right hand, even if her

calls usually took him away from pleasure to the games of

silent war that his agency fought.

"Nick Carter, please," the synthesized voice said.

' 'What do you want?"

"We have need of your presence," the complicated as

sembly of chips and wires communicated.

"Where is he?"

"In his office. The message seemed urgent."

Carter hung up. He didn't feel the need to say good2bye

to a machine. He sometimes wondered if he had been in

the business too long. More and more, in the assignments

Hawk gave him, he encountered computer-controlled bar-

riers. He was flesh and blood. He derE11ded on his wits,

his knife, and his gun to get the job done. He was skilled in

the use of most modern weapons and could fly almost any

aircraft to a reasonable level of skillÄ)ut he was weary of

the opposition gearing up with state-of-the-art electronics

to run their operations. More and more, he wondered if one

of the computers, particularly after artificial intelligence

was perfected, would be the death of him.

"Who was that?" Eloise asked, crushing out her ciga-

rette and coming to him, holding him close.


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"You wouldn't trlieve me if I told you."

• 'Try me."

13

He smiled to himself at the two words, having tried her

many times in the past few days. "A computer."

"You're putting me on."

"l wish I were. When my work calls, they sometimes

turn a computer to find me. It's like getting in an

elevator and hearing a mechanical voice telling you what to

do, how to move, when to get off," he said, taking the last

drag of his cigarette and reaching for her. "I hate it."

"Well, you don't have to go this vet)' minute," she

covering his mouth with hers. She pressed

against him from chest to t(E, willing him to take her one

more time, to leave with her a final memory that would be

indelible.

When she let him up for air, he chuckled. "Let the

damned computer wait."

When he pulled her him and entered her, his

passion mounting, the phone rang again.

Viciously, he swept up the receiver and he could

answer, the electronic voice announced: "I have an Eastern

flight out of Sarasota in one hour that connects with Delta

in Atlanta for Washington with only a forty-minute

layover. The tickets are at the Eastem counter in the name

of Jack Clifford."

"Ihe connection was broken as he smashed down the

receiver.

The Delta flight took him into Washington's National

Airport. Carter took a cab to his brownstone in George-

town, showered, packed a suitcase with fresh clothes, and

ve his beautifully restored Jaguar XKE across the Theo-

dore Roosevelt Bridge and up New Hampshire Avenue to

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NICK CARTER

Dupont Circle. He drove around the circle, past AXE

headquarters in the Amalgamated Press and Wire Services

building, to a small side street a couple of blocks to the

north. Miraculously, he found a parking spot in the con-

gested neighborhood.

Amalgamated Press and Wire Services was the front for

a highly secret intelligence agency, AXE, run by David

Hawk, his boss, probably the keenest mind in the Western

intelligence community. But that fact was known by very

few people. Hawk had been one of the best fieldmen for

years he took to his desk. It was reputed that he'd

been with "Wild Bill" Donovan, the founder of the OSS,

the forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency. Carter

had never brought the subject up. Hawk would have to

have a very young man if the rumor was tme and a lot

older now than he looked.

AXE had been formed at the request of the president

after too many leaks in the other clandestine services had

caused too many unnecessary deaths. Hawk was a friend

and the most logical man to be given the task. Carter was

Hawk's tkSt agent, but there was more to their relationship

than mere professional respect. While the older man's

manner was brusque and commanding, his feelings for

Carter were almost fatherly, although he rarely allow

overt expressions of concern to surface.

The walk back to Dupont Circle was a ritual with

Carter. He never approached directl»any location where h

was expected. He had too many enemies. Too many opera

tives in rival agencies knew him by sight. So it was his

caution, an obsession with him, that kept him alive whe

others he had known were long dead.

This time his sharply honed senses told him he wm

being observed. He walked around Dupont Circle on th

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west side without looking directly at AXE headquarters.

He stopped frequently, once to light a cigarette, once to tie

a shoe, and his eyes covered the ground all around him

without seeing anything out of place. Still it was there—

the feeling persisted.

Instead of going to the Amalgamated Press offices,

Carter stepped into a phone booth and called Hawk's pri-

vate nurntEr.

"Yes," the gruff voice barked at the mouthpiece.

Carter could imagine his boss sitting in the high-backed

swivel chair, a foul-smelling cigar in his mouth, smoke

circling to the ceiling. Hawk was of middle height, stocky,

and usually wore dark blue or gray suits. He had a full

head of startlingly white hair.

' 'Carter," he announced. "I'm at a pay phone near the

circle. I think I'm being followed."

"Lose them. Meet at the safe house on Vermont

Avenue."

Carter hailed a cab and asked the driver to take him to

the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He flipped a twenty

beside the driver a block before they amved and was out of

the taxi and into the FBI monolith before anyone following

could react.

He knew the ground floor well. He took a back en-

trance, hailed another cab, and was heading back north-

west again in seconds. He slipped out of the cab at the

Washington Plaza Hotel, entered the lobby, and headed for

the side and another taxi stand. By the time he stood a

block away from the safe house, he knew he had lost his

pursuer.

The old brownstone on Vermont Avenue was in the

middle of the block, one of several refurbished in a block

community project. A couple, low-level agents of AXE,

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NICK CARTER

fronted the house for Hawk, attended local community

meetings, shopped, cut the grass, and looked like any other

retired couple.

Hawk was in the second-floor-front sanctuary he some-

times used when he wanted to get away from the demands

of his office. He stood at the front window, his mouth

pulling on the inevitable foul cigar, his hands clasped be-

hind his back. He turned when Carter entered.

"Who was on you?" he demanded impatiently. Never a

man with an abundance of tolerance for intermptions to his

plans, his attitude was almost hostile.

"I don't know, sir. I lost them."

"Sit down. I'd like you on a plane to Singapore as soon

as possible. We've got a lot to cover."

Carter looked across a glass table at the older man. By

keeping up with world news, he frequently was able to

guess why he was being summoned. Totally relaxed in

Florida, he hadn't opened a single copy of the Sarasota

Herald Tribune that had been delivered to his room every

day for more than a week.

"Two of our agents are missing in Singapore. One of

our junior people in the area sent back word that they've

been taken by the Malaysian authorities for drug posses-

sion. Apparently a kilo of heroin was found in their car.

*Ihey're in a jail in Kuala Lumpur."

"Who set them up?"

"I don't know. I want them out ofxthere. Drug posses-

Sion is a hanging offense in Malaysia."

"Can't you use your contacts?"

"Not this time. 'Ihe local are adamant. Some-

thing like our zero tolerance policy on drugs. They make

no exceptions."

SINGAPORE SLING

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"A little out of my tine, isn't it?" Carter asked, taking a

cigarette from a gold case and tapping the end tkfore he lit

it.

'On the surface, Hawk said, blowing smoke to

the ceiling and getting up to pace in front of the window.

"There's a lot going on in Singapore right now. Two CIA

agents disappeared while working on the kidnapping of the

brothers. We sent in two of our people to find out what

haplk.ned to them and they end up tring framed. Stupid!"

"Aren't the Soos the brothers who were the snake oil

kings of the Far East?" Carter asked.

"They started with Ginseng Essence Balm and built it

•nto a conglomerate. Billionaires. Someone—some group

we haven't identified—has taken them."

"But they're from Singapore. Our E*ople are in Kuala

Lumpur."

"l want you to find out what the hell's going on over

there. The prime minister of Singapore is about to retire.

Our information on his probable successor is not encourag-

mg—the man has marked Soviet leanings."

"*lhe prime minister's in px)wer since the sixties.

e changed the place from an immwerished colony to an

economic miracle, one of the trading leaders of the Far

East," Carter mused. "He created an almost perfect scxi-

ety."

'SMaybe too perfect. You know the place as well as I do.

Squeaky clean. Fines for dropping a candy on the

treets. Banners on almost every block extolling the value

f work and thrift. Everyone is a money-crazed stock mar-

et fanatic. The children all wear uniforms to school and

t like well-trained robots."

"It could be worse. It may seem artificial to us, but it's

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NICK CARTER

better than guns everywhere, neighborhods held hostage

to crack, and homeless sleeping on the sidewalks."

"Could Hawk said, continuing to pace. He seemed

to have boundless energy and had to work it off. "But the

prime minister—what's his name?—Peter Hue Yen—has

too many enemies. It's a valuable pie and one hell of a lot

of people want a piece of it."

"Have you set up a cover?"

"No. Fly in as as possible. Go first class all the

way. Stay at the Shangri-la, play the tables, nose around.

Ginger has already made your reservations."

"What about our people in Kuala Lumpur?"

"You'll have to be in two places at the same time,

Nick," Hawk said. "Maintain the rich tourist cover but get

our people out of jail. Don't let anyone connect the two

roles."

"And nose around to find out who took the Soo brothers

and why," Carter finished for him. "Take a good look at

the prime minister's successor. Find out who is backing

him and his intent—

"And if it goes against our interests, put a stop sign on

it," Hawk interrupted.

"That it?"

"No. I've had word that someone in Singapore with in-

credible power may be pulling strings that affect your as

signment."

"What do you know about him?'k

"Not as much as I'd like. He's very powerful and ve

private. I've got a feeling you'll learn more from our peo

ple when you get them out."

"What do you want me to do with them? Send the

home? Use them to help?"

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'They could be a problem for you. Use your judgment.

If you can't use them, send them to the Bangkok chief of

station. I'll talk to him. He'll reassign them. If you want

local help, call on him."

"Joe Wright still our man?"

"He's still there."

"Is Howard in town?"

Howard Schmidt wa.s AXE's man of all trades—archi-

vist, identifications chief, master of electronic gadgets.

"He's in his basement lair as usual. You can get him

through the computer."

"I've been meaning to to you about that com-

puter—-" Carter started to say.

"No changes to the computer," Hawk cut him off, rais-

ing one hand like a stop signal. The computer was a sensi-

tive issue they had discussed before. "You've got to go

with the times, Nick. We're programming it to do more

every day."

Carter mumbled something under his breath. Hawk

caught the word "progress" arxl some profanity: He almost

cracked a smile.

"Forget about the computer, Nick," the older man said

as Carter rose to leave. "Some things you just have to live

with."

Back at his car, Carter sensed he was being watched

again. It didn't really matter now. He was on his own, a

condition that was second nature to him. He'd been operat-

ing alone for so long it might not natural to feel safe and

secure all the time. The vacations, like the one he'd had

with Eloise, had been great, just what he needed between

demanding jobs, but the action was the thing. He had an

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NICK CARTER

assignment, one that was open-ended, and that had the po-

tential to take him in almost any direction.

So he had to forget about the Eloises of this world and

concentrate on the job at hand. *Ihe first thing he had to do

was find out who had him under surveillance.


THREE

Pan American flight I took Carter from New York to

Los Angeles, to Hawaii, and finally to Hong Kong. With

only an hour in Hong Kong, he boarded Singapore Airlines

flight 146 for the remaining leg of the journey. The service

on both flights had been luxurious, the crisp efficiency of

the American flight attendants in sharp contrast to the fluid

movements of the Malaysian crew who wore colorful long

gowns in native batiks, their concern total for the comfort

of the people in their charge.

But something had nagged at Caner. The short hairs at

the back of his neck wouldn't permit him to fully relax

during the flight. And it wasn't just the usual signals he

was getting. They seemed to be coming from all directions,

as if he had enemies everywhere.

lhe taxi driver at Changi Airport in Singapore tossed

Carter's bag in the back of the cab and held the door for

him.

22

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"The American embassy," the man from AXE an-

nounced.

His last contact at AXE headquarters had been Howard

Schmidt. The big man had pressed a new set of toys on

him, or he'd tried. He'd designed an attaché case that held

not only Carter's three favorite weapons, but a small

leather case of syringes and drugs. This trip, Schmidt had

included some new items.

Tis cylinder contains a nerve gas," Schmidt had ex-

plained. "Released in an air duct, it will fill a building the

size of our headquarters in seconds. No aftereffects, just a

couple of hours of sleep and a mild headache."

"You know I like to travel light, Howard," Carter said,

remembering the countless times he'd through some-

thing like this with the gadgets man. "You'll have to send

this by diplomatic courier. I'll just have to find a place to

conceal them when I get there."

' 'They could be helpful. What about the Soo kidnap-

ping? The gas could be useful in neutralizing their ene-

mies."

"You've been reading too many spy novels, Howard.

What are all these things, the balls? They look like gre-

nades," Carter asked, hefting one of the plum-sized metal

balls in one hand. "Are you turning me into a mercenary?"

"You don't have to use them. Just something new. Four

times the power of a regulation grenade. They're equipped

with timers you can set quickly, fromsfive to twenty sec-

onds. The pins pull out more easily than those of conven-

tional grenades. But you've got to be careful with these

babies. Each one is capable of blowing up a small building

or totally demolishing a car."

"Leave the gas in the case, but I'll be damned if I'm

going to carry around a bunch of those things."

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"Aw, Nick—

23

24

"Just take them out. I'm not declaring war on anyone."

He had to humor his friend Howard once in a while, but

the compromise was the best he was about to make. The

big man spent too much time alone in the confines of his

basement kingdom dreaming up weird contraptions for

AXE agents to use. He knew that Carter wouldn't use

some of his truly outlandish inventions and Carter had

never talked to the other agents about them.

Now in the S 'Lion City," the taxi driver, a small, chain-

smoking native, drove sedately, unlike his He

cruised along the East Coast Parkway pointing out the

Swimming Center, the Tennis Center, the golf dnving

range, the Big Splash, a winding tubular affair populated

by hundreds of kids sliding down the tubes amid a rush of

white water: His voice was melodious, a singsong of

sound, but his English was almost impossible to follow.

Carter was getting the fuli tourist treatment. At that

point in time, he didn't really care. He'd probably get the

full tour of Chinatown before they headed for Hill Street

and the embassy.

Carter was familiar with Singapore, as he was with most

major cities in the world. lhey passed the beautiful Arme-

nian Church before pulling up in front of the embassy In

bright sunlight, the church was as white as a newly white-

washed fence. It looked like a typical New England village

church. The fact that they'd paqsed it confirmed that he'd

been taken for a "tourist ride." The church was at Coleman

and Hill streets. ney should have come in from the north,

past Stamford Road, not from the south.

It took him no more than five minutes at the embassy to

retrieve Howard's case, but not before he'd received the

usual warnings from the ambassador's chargé d'affaires.

NICK CARTER


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NICK CARTER

Why were the desk jockeys all so damn pompous? Why

did they all feel obliged to tell him to keep out of trouble?

He had a job to do and they knew it. Bureaucrats. He could

survive quite well without them.

Back in the cab, he spoke to the driver in Mandarin,

knowing it was probably the man's native tongue. "The

Shangri-la Hotel. Take Stamford Road, Orchard Road, and

Orange Grove Road. No detours this time. I don't feel like

another tour, old father."

As they circled to the right up the incline of Orange

Grove Road, the Shangri-la loomed at them out of the

trees. He'd been there before and knew it well, one of the

ten highest-rated hotels in the world,

His suite was magnificent, three rooms with every lux-

ury and convenience a man could desire. His balcony, one

of a hundred in an annex building, seemed like part of a

giant staircase leading down to the pool area. The whole

series of balconies was covered with clinging vines, all in

bloom, their fragrance almost overpowering, their orange,

red, and yellow blossoms adding to the incredible beauty

of the place.

To his right, a man-made fountain flowed noisily down

a hundred-foot drop to the side of a poolside restaurant that

was well placed between the luxury annex and the towering

main building. In the near distance, the lush grass of a golf

course on the grounds added to the view.

But Carter hadn't come here for pl• He flipped open

the attaché case, withdrew Wilhelmina, his 9mm Luger,

and strapped the holster on so she rested under his left

armpit. Hugo, his needle-sharp stiletto, he strapped to his

right forearm under his jacket. Sitting loosely in its cham-

Ois sheath, he could easily flip it into the palm of his hand

SINGAPORE SLING


25

with the simple flick of his wrist. The weapons were famil-

iar. With them he felt complete. Ihey had saved his life

more times than he could count. When he'd been younger

and less jaded, he'd named them as he might old friends

and the names had stuck.

He had one more familiar wearx)n, a small gas bomb the

size of a large walnut that he wore taped to his inner thigh

when on assignment. He called the bomb Pierre. He could

reach for it in an emergency, twist the two halves, and,

holding his breath, render others in the same room uncon-

scious. Sometimes Pierre contained lethal gas. This Pierre,

the last of many he'd left behind in life and death situa-

tions, was lethal. The case also contained the cylinder of

nerve gas Schmidt had pressed on him in Washington.

The last item he brought out was a black leather case

small enough to fit into a pocket. It held a half-dozen min-

iature syringes and three vials of liquid, ail of different

colors. The green liquid rendered a victim unconscious.

The orange liquid was a truth senam. The red was lethal. A

few drops of any of the three were highly effective, Carter

had used them in the past and found the assortment to be

extremely helpful in a variety of situations.

He opened a closet and was about to toss the attaché

case on a shelf when he stopped, totally surprised. A jai

alai cesta was on the shelf. He took it down and examined

it. It was the one Eloise had loaned him in Florida. No note

was attached, but none was necessary. With the discovery,

a lot of things were falling into place.

It was her way of saying she wanted to be with him. It

explained the eyes on him in Washington and all the way to

Singapore. If you had enough money you could buy men

who could find out anything for you, could track anyone

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NICK CARTER

without detection. The problem was real. If she was just

trying to be with him, that was one thing. If she'd been a

plant from a foreign agency all along, that was another.

Carter searched the room as thoroughly as he could

without the assistance of electronic gadgetry. He found two

listening devices. The screws holding the huge mirror in

the bathroom had been tampered with recently. He was

probably looking at a one-way mirror. It was obvious that

he was under intense scrutiny. Was it the caprice of a smit-

ten woman, or something else? Either way he didn't like it.

Carter's suite was at the end of the hall next to the wa-

terfall. He walked silently to the door of the neighboring

suite, swiftly picked the lock, and moved into the sun-

drenched quarters with Wilhelmina in his right hand.

A man was sitting at a desk, earphones

clamped to his head.

Carter placed the cold muzzle of his Luger behind the

man's ear. "Don't make any stupid moves," he said. "Take

off the earphones, put your hands in the air, and turn

around slowly."

The man was dressed in a Brooks Brothers suit, his tie

expensive, his shoes custom-made. He was clean-cut, not

too different in appearance from the average FBI man, but

with more expensive tastes. He appeared to be American.

"Who are you?" Carter snapped.

'*My pocket?" the man asked, pointing.

Carter nodded.

The man reached into an inner pocket carefully and

brought out his wallet. He flipped it open. The card was

embossed in gold. The man's picture, in color, took up half

the space.

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TAMPA CONFIDENTIAL

Jeff Bridgetown

27

'Get your hands in the air," Carter ordered. "You're a

long way from Tampa, Bridgetown. Did Eloise Harper

send you?"

"I don't reveal the identity of my clients."

"You don't have any idea what you're dealing with,"

Caner said menacingly. "If Eloise is being foolish, trying

to stretch out something that's over, that's one thing and no

threat to me. But if our meeting was planned and she's not

what she seems, then you could end up very stiff and cold

a long way from home." While he spoke, he flipped Hugo

into his palm, held the point just the man's right ear,

and holstered his gun.

Bridgetown was quiet for a moment or two. Carter

traced a thin line with Hugo from Bridgetown's ear to his

throat. Small drops of blood ran to the edge of the man's

collar The two were almost nose to nose. "What will it

be?" Carter demanded. "Are you willing to die for a

woman with an overactive libido?"

"I sometimes work for her father," the man said calmly.

"She called me."

"What for?"

'To keep track of you, to find out who you really are

and what you do."

"You didn't get this far alone. No one is that good."

"No. I've got a team."

"Too bad you didn't cover your back," Carter said.

"Where are they?"

Bridgetown glanced at a walkie-talkie next to him. "I

can call them. They'd be here in seconds."

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NICK CARTER

"Never mind," Carter said, slipping Hugo back into its

sheath. He was satisfied that the team was harmless, that

Eloise was just a woman with too much money and a father

who was too indulgent. "I'm just going to say this once.

You're in way over your head. You might be good, but

you're a dead man if you don't pack up and go home. You

and your team."

"She told me about the scars on your body. I figured you

weren't your average citizen."

"So why didn't you advise her to leave me alone?"

"A buck's a buck. You don't get plum assignments like

this every day," Bridgetown said, moving out of Carter's

space and lowering his hands.

'Then consider it a vacation," Carter said. "You were

very lucky, Bridgetown, you and your people."

"So what do I tell my client?"

"You'll think of something, I'm sure. Tell her to let me

go and to look elsewhere for company. Make it stick. I

don't want her mooning around here. She could end up

dead." The expression on his face told the story. He was

serious and no one could mistake the fact.

"I'll do that," Bridgetown said. "We're out of here.

Okay?"

"Make it fast. I've got work to do," Carter said. "Eloise

is spoiled. She made a bad mistake."

"I was beginning to think the same thing," Bridgetown

said. "You're more than a businessmarA»r a tourist, Carter

No one's ever taken me like this."

"What's your background?"

"CIA. Too much conflict in the Company. It's better to

work for yourself."

"You've seen enough to know you'd better pack up?"

Carter asked, buying the man's story

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29

"You bet. What are you, Carter? Some kind of super-

spook?"

"You know better than to ask," Carter said. "When you

report back, make damn sure she gets a very bland picture

of me. If she gets in the way ... well."

'61 get the message."

Carter made him assume the position and relieved him

of a .357 magnum. "Why so much firepower?" he asked.

"Some of my work gets tcx) close to the bone."

"I'll hang on to this. Just clear out and get the message

across. It's in your best interests. If you don't, you'll have

more than you can handle."

"Whatever. You want me to take back the jai alai thing-

umajig?"

Carter pushed the private investigator to the door. "No.

Just make a fast exit and don't look back," he said.

"Again, think of it as a short exotic vacation."

When he'd gone, Caner coded a series of numbers into

one of the phones he'd checked for bugs in his own suite.

He was annoyed that Eloise would be so stupid, so self-

centered. It meant he'd have to check on her, make sure

she was just a foolish, overly romantic woman and not a

threat.

Hawk was not in. He spoke to Ginger, and told her to

have someone check out Eloise Harper. He hung up and

gave all his attention to the job at hand. He'd wasted

enough time on nonessentials.

He called the desk and asked them to order a rental car,

something powerful but plain, preferably black. Kuala

Lumpur was obviously the first point of attack, but he

wanted to make some impression in Singapore first.

Carter dressed in a lightweight safari suit, short-sleeved,

and headed for the counter: He picked up the keys to the

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NICK CARTER

rental and headed for the docks. No one followed. He sat

at an open-air bar next to the dock where tourists were

lined up for a tour of the harbor in an old Chinese junk

with red sails. While they boarded, he watched the people

around him. No one seemed suspicious. No one was inter-

ested in his movements ... as far as he could tell.

So much for establishing his baee. He returned to the

room and prepared for the trip inland. He packed a small

bag that contained an outfit all in black—jumpsuit,

sneakers, and stevedore cap—and as an afterthought,

tossed in the cylinder Schmidt had sent along.

ne Justice Building in Kuala Lumpur was in the mid-

die of the city, in an old section, surrounded by other old

red brick buildings. It was three stories high. Carter sat in

the rental in his black outfit. He had kept clear of the few

streetlights, changed from his safari suit in the car, and

blackened his face. His familiar weapons were in place.

Before heading for the old building, he had eaten his

evening meal in a café run by an aged Chinese. The man

had been attracted to an American who could speak his

tongue.

"What brings you to our city, younger brother?" the an-

cient gentleman asked, keeping his eyes on his help while

he rested his tired feet.

"I'm an architect back home. I spend my vacations

looking at old buildings."

"We have many old buildings. What do you want to

see?" the old man asked. He was small, very thin, but very

bright. Nothing escaped him. He knew what was happen-

ing in every corner of his establishment while talking to the

stranger.

"I design penal institutions back home."

SINGAPORE SLING

31


31

The old man rolled his tongue around the literal transla-

tion. "l know not the word."

"Prisons. I design jails."

"Ah. We have many jails. Much theft. Too much

trading. Bad. Very bad."

Carter smiled to himself at the hypocrisy. The old man

was an opium user himself. He had all the signs. He even

smelled of the last pirE he'd smoked. "l hear that drug

smuggling is a hanging offense."

The old man was wary. As a user, he could pulled in

and sent to the scaffold. His only safety lay in the number

of his people who were as addicted as he. The police could

not take them all, so they left the users and went after the

dealers. "You have beard right, younger brother," he fi-

nally said. "You look more like a policeman than an archi-

tect. How do I know you are not trying to trap an old

man

"l have no traps, older brother. I simply observe. Where

is the jail they keep the condemned?" He tossed in the

question casually.

"Not many condemned right now. The dealers are lying

low. If anyone is awaiting the hangman, he will be in the

Justice Building." The old man smiled for the first time,

revealing teeth blackened by the smoke of many pipes.

'Ihey were mostly stumps, most uneven, some missing.

The parchment skin of his face wrinkled as he went on.

"Poor devils. What are they to do? We have used the

powder and paste for hundreds of years. Smugglers are

fourth and fifth generation. Are they to become fishermen

or panderers?"

"l hear even foreigners are condemned to death," Carter

added as he finished off the last of his coffee.

"I am told that two are in the basement cells of the

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NICK CARTER

Justice Building now." the old man said. He suddenly

looked weary. A frown creased his ancient face. "But you

will excuse me. Business is a tireless master."

had been a couple of hours earlier Caner had been

watching the building since then. Police cars had brought

in prisoners. He had seen no one leave who was not in

uniform. It was late, too late for court appearances and the

work of lawyers.

Carter had mulled over the situation carefully He

couldn•t go in blasting. The operation had to be as clean as

he could make it. Howard Schmidt's latest invention rested

on the seat beside him. The nerve gas was obviously the

answer, but it, too. presented problems. He could hold his

breath longer than most people, at least four minutes. That

was all right for him. but what about the prisoners? How

big were they? Could he carry them both out? He decided

on a soft probe first.

Carter circled the building quietly. Fortunately. it stood

alone with an empty lot between it and its neighbors on

both sides. The weed-coveled lots were being prepared for

an expansion to the old building.

A small parking lot at the back held only three cars. A

dim bulb shone over a small door, the only at the

rear. Carter it a crack and peered down the length

of a deserted hall.

With the agility of a night-stalking creature, he slipped

inside and descended to the first baserqent, taking the nar-

row stairway two steps at a time.

"What are you doing ... ?" a voice behind him started to

say:

Carter swung without hesitation and the lone

guard on the side of the neck. The man went down hard.

Carter dragged him to a door nearby and shoved him in

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33

among the brooms and A mobile laundry hamper

took up the rest of the space.

Carter found no cells on that but he did find a

small elevator at the end of the hall, There was no way he

was going to use the elevator now, but it might be useful

later.

He took the stairs to the next lower level, making a

mental note of every detail as he went, including the vent-

ing system.

The second basement contained a group of small storage

offices, a closet identical to the one on the floor above, and

one long row of cells. A guard was watching television, his

back to Carter.

The Killma.ster crept up slowly, his black sneakers mak-

ing no noise on the painted cement floor. He the

guard in a choke hold and held him immobile. Since most

of the population was Chinese, he whispered in the man's

ear in Mandarin, '*Where are the two Americans?"

. understand," the man choked out in Canton-

"J don't .

ese.

Carter repeated the question in the guard's language.

'They are in the last cell to the nght. lhey—

he

started to say as Carter cut him off, rendering him uncon-

scious.

The man from AXE deposited the unconscious guard in

the closet directly below the one he'd used upstairs. The

guard had no keys. Despite the decrepit of the

jail, all doors were controlled electronically from a control

room.

He ran along the hall to the last cell. "Where is the

control he asked the two dejected Americans with-

out preliminaries.

He must have looked like an apparition. "Hawk sent

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NICK CARTER

me," he hissed at them. g 'You know the layout of this

"Part of the job," the smaller of the two said.

"Where the hell's the control room for the cell doors?"

"Main floor. Second door to the right."

"I'm going to take you out. Stay as close to the cell door

as you can," Carter said, taking off at a run, not waiting for

an answer. There was no point in telling them he might

have to use the gas. He had the lay of the land now. He

could handle it.

The two flights of stairs to the back door were scaled in

seconds. He slipped around to the front, keeping to the

shadows.

The cylinder would be useful after all. He took it from

the car and clipped it to his belt. He unraveled a long thin

wire from around his waist and attached a grappling hook

that he unfolded from a pocketknife that resembled a

Swedish army knife.

It took him two attempts and more noise than he in-

tended before thc small grappling hook caught and held.

He donned gloves and pulled himself up the wire, hand

over hand.

The roof was flat. A relatively modern rooftop air con-

ditioner hummed quietly to one side. One of the two large

fans alongside the unit was circulating air down below.

The simplest task was releasing the gas and leaving the

cylinder propped up beside the air The more diffi-

cult one was to get in and then escape detection while

transporting two inert bodies.

Carter decided not to waste time trying to find a way in

from the roof. He rappelled down the side of the building

in seconds and was at the front door ready to move in when

two officers entered in front of him, reporting for duty.

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35

Too many variables, he said to himself. He hadn't

checked on the time factors for the nerve gas. Schmidt said

it would last for several hours, but how long would it take

for it to take effect? He couldn't allow for entering

the building. His best txt was to get in fast, then use the

elevator and the back door on his way out. He took two

minutes to move his car to the rear parking lot, then glided,

catlike, around to the front door.

No one was in sight. Carter took in several lungsful of

air, expelling each, building up a high concentration of

oxygen in his blood. Through long practice and the use of

yoga techniques, he was capable of holding his breath for

four minutes. Once, trapped in a submarine, fighting for

his life, he had extended his limit to five minutes but had

blacked out at that point. lhere was no way he could allow

himself to black out today.

Carter crept in past the brightly lit front entrance and

down the hall to the control room. On the way he passed

the two officers he'd seen enter. They had made it only a

few feet inside the He didn't stop. Every fraction of a

second was precious.

Two men were slumped over the control panel. lhe

panel's instructions were in German. The guards had du-

plicated them using Chinese characters. German was no

problem for the Killmaster. He pulled the guards aside and

found a switch that controlled the cells in the second base-

ment and threw it. He left one of the guard's bodies

drooped over it.

He the elevator to the second basement. It was

painfully slow. He checked his Rolex. A minute and a half

had passed already. The door slid open to reveal two more

guards on the floor, one toppled over on the other. Carter

found the closet where he'd left the guard earlier, pulled

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' NICK CARTER

out the laundry basket, a canvas affair with a metal frame

over four sturdy casters, and wheeled it down the hall to

the last cell.

Two and a half minutes.

As he worked, he thought the agents were an unlikely

team, one so much smaller than the other, almost like a

boy. He tossed the inert frame of the big man on the bottom

and eased the smaller one on top of him. He covered them

both with a soiled sheet, a precaution that was more pre-

vention than necessity, and had them to the elevator before

the third minute was up.

The elevator crawled to the main floor slowly. Carter

was beginning to feel uncomfortable, small black and

green spots floating before his eyes from time to time.

At last the elevator opened on the main floor. He pushed

the cart toward the rear of the building, the casters playing

tricks with him, the cart bouncing off the walls, first one

side, then the other.

He came to the end of the hall and found a hallway

crossing like a T. Which way? He turned left and soon

found himself trapped at a dead end. Three times he had to

stop and shove bodies out of the way:

Carter reversed his path and took the other end of the T.

Aftter twenty feet it turned sharply to the right and he was

faced with a set of double doors. They were locked. He

whipped out his Luger and shattered the lock. It took three

rounds before the door gave way to aspowerful kick from

his right foot.

Four and a half minutes.

Carter was feeling the pressure build, threatening to pop

his ears if he didn't release it. He exhaled, careful not to

take in any of the gas. His vision was blurred and his ac-

tions slowed.

SINGAPORE SLING

37


37

He reached the door and pushed the cart out into the

night air just as his knees stared to buckle. As the door

closed behind them, he took a long breath, drawing the

fresh air deep within his lungs.

He still wasn't out of danger He struggled to his feet on

rubbery knees and pushed the cart to his car. He opened the

car door, threw aside the sheet, and lifed out the first AXE

agent.

He had just placed the smaller body on the back seat

when someone shouted from the other side of the lot. He

grabbed for the other agent and had him half in the car

when he felt two slugs tear into the flesh of his burden,

followed by the sound of two shots.

Carter dromEd the agent, whipiEd out his own gun, and

crouched beside the car, offering as little target as possible.

Two officers appeared out of the darkness, their guns

raised. The Killmaster one with a leg shot. lhe

other spun around and droprxd, a 9mm bullet in one

shoulder.

Carter kicked their guns to one side in the darkness as

they lay moaning on the asphalt. He clubbed them sense-

less and left them to be found. There was no need to kill

officers doing their duty, but he couldn't afford to be rec-

ognized or have them register the license of his car as he

sped away.

The big agent was dead. Carter left him, with regrets,

and scrambled into the car. Within seconds he was blocks

from the Justice Building headed for the highway back to

Singapore, two hundred miles away.


FOUR

In the rear parking lot, Carter changed to his street

clothes. The annex for the luxury suites offered the

kind of privacy not available for patrons who had to enter

through the lobby to get to their rooms.

A parking lot entrance }Ermitted Carter to hoist the

small agent on his shoulder and get up to the suite by way

of the back stairs. In minutes he was in the suite, breathing

hard, the agent on the floor at his feet, without anyone

seeing them.

In the light of the luxury suite, the crumpled form at his

feet looked more like a street beggar than one of AXE's

best people. Hawk had said little about the team except for

their value to him. They had been working the Far East for

years with great success. It was a real coincidence that his

path had not crossed with theirs before.

How long had it been since the gas took effect? Carter

asked himself. About four hours. This one could be out for

40

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NICK CARTER

another hour yet. He really didn't know. Carter lifted the

inert form and deposited the agent carefully in thc spare

bedroom. The stevedore cap the operative had been wear-

ing slipped off revealing a head of closely cropped chestnut

hair. The agent was filthy and Carter guessed probably in-

fested with lice from the other inmates of the jail. The

Killmaster decided to strip the body and get rid of the

clothes.

Carter slipped off the agent's running shoes, unbuttoned

and unzipped the dirt-encrusted jeans and pulled them off,

tossing them on a sheet he'd laid out on the floor. The bare

legs were dirty. They were well formed but not muscular.

And they were hairless.

*Ihe jacket was easier to take off, and Carter threw it on

top of the pants. The shirt was buttoned to the neck. He

made short work of the buttons but stopped as he peeled

the material back from the bare torso. Small rosebuds of

breasts jutted from the chest. They were a mystery, either

the fashion-model-sized breasts of a woman, or the drug-

induced breasts of a man who preferred the role of a

woman.

Carter was puzzled. Why dress and act as a man if you

really wanted to be a woman? he wondered. Well, he could

always try for the acid test. He peeled the boxer shorts

from the inert form to reveal a flat, satin-smooth belly end-

ing in a soft triangle that matched the chestnut hair of her

head.

He cursed aloud. Carter was annoyed not only at him-

self for feeling like a voyeur, but at Hawk for not filling

him in. There was no way this woman could have passed

herself off as a man for years without Hawk knowing.

He looked down at the slim form and couldn't help an

appraisal, even under the strange circumstances. This was

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a beautiful woman, boyishly slim, but somehow very de-

sirable.

But she was in desperate need of a bath. He decided he

might as well go the whole route. He IEeled off the rest of

the shirt and the grimy scxks. He tossed them onto the

sheet, tied it into a bundle, and left her on the bed while he

ran a bath.

'Ihe bathroom was all black tiles, mirrors, smoked plas-

tic partitions, and gold faucets. The tub was raised about

twenty inches above the flcx»r: To start the tub, Carter had

to climb two carpeted stairs. The toilet and bidet were in

separately partitioned sections of the rcx»rn, but the divi-

sions were of smoked plastic. One whole wall was mir-

He returned to the bedroom to find her curled up on one

side. He slid his arms under her, feeling more patemal than

anything else, and carried her into the luxurious bathroom.

He made sure the water level was just enough to cover her,

rested her head securely in a special sponge sling provided

for the purpose, then headed for the living room and a

phone.

Carter punched in a series of numbers that would give

him entry into the AXE computer. He wasn't worried about

the hotel switchboard. It had been installed originally as

one of the first totally electronic services in the Far East.

No one would be monitoring him.

"Nick. How is the job going?" the electronic voice

asked.

His codes had given the computer instant recognition.

Its circuits would know about his assignment and Hawk's

whereabouts. While he had to admit it saved time, Carter

still felt some resentment at the lack of human contact. He

and Ginger Bateman had something going a long time ago

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NICK CARTER

and still had a strong bond between them. He missed the

small asides and jibes that no whiz kid could build into the

computer's memory banks.

"Just connect me with Hawk," he said.

"What is it, N3?" Hawk asked. He seemed to be preoc-

cupied. The use of Carter's official designation said some-

thing about his mood.

"I lost one of our people," Carter reported. "I'm sorry.

Maybe I could have avoided it. I wasn't in very good shape

at the time."

"l'm sure you did your best, Nick," Hawk said, his tone

now solicitous. "Who was it?"

"We didn't talk about names at my briefing. It was the

big one."

"Barney: Damn! We can't afford to lose any agents. Let

me rephrase that I hate to lose any agent, a rcx)kie or

someone like Barney. Jesus! How's Sam?"

"Don't you mean Samantha?"

"Yes. What's your problem? I detect a note of belliger-

ence there."

"I had to find out her sex a piece at a time. I brought her

back to my hotel unconscious, and she was filthy from the

jail. I thought she could use a delousing."

"And, I'm sure she'll express her appreciation at youi

concern for her well-txing."

Carter sighed. "I just don't like that kind of shock, sir.

Sorry about Barney. I didn't know hiq."

"A good man. He'll be missed. I'll get Joe Wright to

claim the body. How did Sam take it?"

"I had to use Howard's new gas. She hasn't come out of

it yet. I left her soaking in a tub. She'll •probably be out for

another hour. What's her full name? Tell me about her."

"Samantha Trail. Her partner was Bamey Feldman. We

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recruited her from the CIA, him from the Mossad."

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"What about the woman? I asked Ginger to

check on her."

"Harrnless. If you'd leam to keep your pants—

"Let's not go into my private life," Carter interrupted

his boss. "What about Sam? You want me to send her

home or to Joe Wright in Bangkok?"

"Keep her with you, Nick. She'll miss Barney. It'll be a

hell of a shock," Hawk said. "She knows Singapore like

the back of her hand and she's got an organization there.

Keep her busy. You'll learn a lot about the place."

"I don't need a partner on this, particularly a grieving

woman. "

"You bastard!" a woman's voice screamed at him from

the door.

"That her?" Hawk asked.

Carter turned to see her standing, dripping, a towel

wrapped around her. "That's her. I'll talk to you later."

He hung up and moved toward her. She backed away.

"Don't you remember me? I pulled you out of the Jus-

tice Building."

"So where's Bamey? He wouldn't leave me alone with

someone like you."

"l was the one in black who told you I'd get you out.

Barney didn't make it. I'm sorry."

"Barney ... didn't.. v" Her hand went to her mouth and

she gradually sank to her knees.

He went to her and scooped her up in his arms. As he

carried her to the bed she flailed at him harmlessly and

moaned her loss.

"Barney Bamey .1 can't believe he's gone. How

did it happen?"

Carter poured a brandy from a small flask he usually

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NICK CARTER

carried. He held her head and made her slide most of it

down her throat. She choked on it but got it down.

She smelled of the expensive soap provided by the

hotel. Despite her surprise at finding herself in a strange

tub, she must have taken time to soap herself. The towel

had slipped down. She looked beautiful, vulnerable, and

desirable all at the same time. Carter no longer felt pater-

nal.

"I know you. I know who you are," she blurted out as

the brandy glass slipped from her hand. She pulled up the

towel and moved away from him. "You're Carter. You're

the Nick Carter. Jesus! I don't know what to say."

Carter had experienced similar reactions before when

confronted by new recruits, but never with a seasoned

agent, and one who was probably the best in the Far East.

He pulled back the sheet, fluffed up the pillow, and mo-

tioned her to slip between the sheets. He poured her an-

other brandy, moved to the other side of the bed, and lit a

cigarette.

"Can I have one, please?" she asked.

He gave her one, and she held it out to be lit. "You

didn't answer my question." Her voice was low and her

hand shook. It was obvious to Carter that she'd been

through one of the worst ordeals of her career.

"I'm truly sorry about Barney. Hawk told me he was

one hell of a guy," Carter started. "I had to feed a knockout

gas into the ventilation system. I to«k you both out in a

laundry hamper, Barney on the bottom. In the parking lot,

I'd just dumped you in the back seat of my car and was

hoisting Barney on my back when officers fired on us.

They hit Barney," he went on, his voice expressionless. "I

put them out of action and checked on Barney. He was

gone. I got the hell out of there and brought you here."

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She put the brandy glass on the night table, the cigarette

in an ashtray, and started to sob uncontrollably, turning

toward him, grabbing at another human being to help her

through her pain.

"He was good, you know? He was.. .Oh, hell ... he

was a good guy, the best partner... eWe didn't have any-

thing going ... you know ... nothing like that. But he was

afriend. He saved my ass more than once. Jesus! I can't

believe he's gone."

She clung to Carter until the sobs stopped. She wiped

her eyes with the edge of the sheet, sat up against the back

of the bed, holding the towel in one hand, and reached for

her cigarette again. It had burned down. Carter lit another

for her.

"Tell me about your case," he said, looking into the

brown eyes that seemed as big as golf balls at that moment.

She had a beautiful face, a long oval, tanned to a deep

brown. Her eyelashes were long. At that moment if seemed

impossible he'd ever mistaken her for a man.

"Are you going to take over?" she asked, moving away

from him again.

"Yes. But Hawk left orders for you to help me. There

are a lot of holes in this one. You should have some of the

answers."

"So I get to work with the famous Nick Carter, the great

Killmaster," she said, her voice flat, perhaps on the edge of

sarcasm.

Carter decided to ignore the hostility. He knew she was

hurting inside. "I'm just a man with a job to do. I'd like

our help."

She managed a wan smile. "I'm sorry. You're right. But

might not be myself for a while."

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NICK CARTER

"That's okay Tell me what you know. What about the

Soo brothers?"

"Clowns who made it big. Two crazy Chinese with an

idea for an elixir and they parlayed it into billions. They

couldn't read or write, but they sure knew how to make

money. Have you ever seen Ginseng Essense Balm Park?"

"No."

"A tourist attraction. Filled with figures from Chinese

mythology and and I suspect, some of their

fantasies. The place is filled with characters undergoing

various forms of torture, bodies ripped apart, children in

bondage—that kind of thing. It's fascinating in a horrible

sort of way," she said, pulling on her cigarette. "but the

tourists eat it up."

The brandy had taken effect. She slid down in the bed

and snuggled against him, under one arm. She talked up at

him, her voice dulled at times, animated at others. He

could feel the heat of her. Involuntarily he thought of her

as he'd seen her before her bath. She'd been beautiful even

when she'd been filthy: He forced his mind back to the job

at hand.

"So who took them?" he asked.

"We don't have conclusive proof, but I'm fairly sure it

was Fat Chen."

Carter's mind slipped back to his friends in Hong Kong,

the Chen clan and his old friend Two Toe Chen, now long

dead. The name Chen was like Smith.Jäat Chen, wherever

he came from, was probably no relation. 'Tell me about

him," he said.

"Arthur Cecil Chen. Adopted by missionaries and chris-

tened with names they gave him. They were killed by hill

bandits in northern Thailand. Fat Chen came here as a

teen-ager, worked the docks as a peddler, got into the drug

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trade, and built it into a billion-dollar business."

"An entrepreneur?"

47

"No. More of a robber baron. Ruthless. He controls

most of the vice in Singapore, and rules by fear and tor-

ture. Hundreds of thugs work for him."

"Why the Soo kidnapping?" he asked, his right arm

going to sleep under her. He shiftted her weight to his

shoulder.

"Another grab for pwer. They were competitors in the

drug trade," she said, moving next to him as she talked,

her skin hot and soft. "Barney and I learned that the

brothers had turned all their assets into cash, enough

money to eliminate the deficit of most developing coun-

tries."

"And Chen planned to siphon it off."

"He probably already has," she said, shifting her weight

against his shoulder, her head resting against his chest, her

clean fragrance drifting up to his nostrils.

"Do you think the Soo brothers are dead?"

"Fairly sure. Barney had contacts in the financial com-

munity. The Soo money has probably been transferred to a

series of dummy companies. Exrvts Barney knew figured

that hundreds of businessmen would present bank drafts in

the name of the brothers and the money would find its way

into a labyrinth of paper companies. It's probably all been

funneled back to Fat Chen by now."

"Are you sure of this?"

"No. But it's the best scenario. It's not the first like this

we've seen. Bamey knew of three other cases like this. He

traced them back to Chen, but he couldn't make any of

them stick. The Soo brothers were the big prize. The others

were probably exercises to sharpen up Chen's people and

set the plan."

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NICK CARTER

"Where do I find Chen?"

"You don't. He doesn't operate in the open. There are

lots of rumors about him."

"Like what?" he asked.

"Promise not to laugh. I'm dead serious. Okay?"

'Go ahead."

"Some say he's a monster controlling his empire

through state-of-the-art technology. Everything he does is

by video cameras and monitors. If he wants one group

disciplined, he calls on another to do his dirty work. He

has a tape file on everyone in his organization."

"Blackmail."

"Probably. I've heard he has video cameras in the of-

fices of all his executives. If he has so many cameras out in

the open, how many do you suppose he's got hidden?"

"What did you mean by executives?"

"He's got a huge legitimate conglomerate. He owns half

of Singapore."

"Like what?"

She thought about it for a moment. "Take Chinatown

alone. He owns fifteen to twenty of the most modern build-

ings: Hong Guan, Far East Financing, Asia Insurance

Building, Chaing Hong Building. The list goes on and on.

Half the junks plying the China Sea are his, most of the

sampans in the harbor, a quarter of the freighters doing

business out of the Lion City."

"Impressive. Where are his headquaqers?"

"I've had a dozen answers on that one. Barney had it

narrowed down."

"How?"

"He figured if Chen wanted total privacy to

he'd use a remote estate. He owns three. One on Telok

Blangah Road near the Ginseng Essense Park, one on Pio-

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neer Road near the Jurong Bird Park, and one on Lady Hill

Road not a quarter mile from here."

"Did Bamey have any hunches?"

"Barney was a pragmatist. I had the hunches, Carter At

first I thought it was•the Lady Hill Road house of

the incredible security. But I checked the other two houses

and found they had the same tight security."

"Example."

"Double fences with laser beams between. The fences

are electrified and the lasers deadly."

"They can be circumvented," Carter thought to himself,

but voiced the thought.

"There's more. He has rotY)ts like small tanks that patrol

inside the fence. The lasers don't seem to restrict the

movement of the robots."

"He probably has the lasers programmed to shut off

momentarily as the robots pass."

"And he has robots inside the fence patrolling the

grounds."

'On all three estates?"

"Yes."

"No matter. We'll find a weakness. What about the

prime minister, Peter Hue Yen?" Carter asked.

"You're well informed. Yes," she said as if thinking

ahead, "Hue Yen. He's been the salvation of Singapore."

"I know the place is a model of economic efficiency,"

Carter said, "but the people are like clones. You can go too

far. The place is too rigidly controlled. Big Brother tells

you how to live your life."

"I can only go by my experience, Carter. This place was

a cesspool when the Japanese were driven out. Now it's a

model for the world. So what if the people are regimented?

They have the best standard of living in Southeast Asia."

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NICK CARTER

"l didn't come here to argue politics. What are his poli-

tics, by the way?"

"Hue Yen is straight line. He controls his party and has

one objective: to make Singapore the best."

"His assistant, Robert Quang," Carter persisted. "W

think he's got Communist leanings."

"It goes much deeper than that," Samantha said, her

voice stronger. She was more in control of herself now.

"Robert Quang's influence stretches throughout the Mala

Peninsula. He was the one who took over the Soo brothers'

share of the drug trade before Chen got to them. It was

means of weakening the opposition and filling his w

chest. He's the 'behind the scenes' leader of the People'

Enlightenment Party, PEP. The party has climbed in popu

larity after long years of hard-fisted rule by the prime min

ister and his Independent Party.

"But that's all a closely guarded secret," she went on

"Quang has been Hue Yen's assistant for the last

years and now he's the logical man to succeed him, You'

right about his real beliefs. We figured he's a deep plant o

the KGB. Barney and I got too close, so he set us up.

Chen did the dirty work for him."

"That expands on what Hawk told me. He said th

prime minister and the U.S. secretary of state fear tha

someone was controlling the Soo fortune and could begin

dump of Singapore dollars on world markets. That coul

cause a crash in Singapore's econoyv and an open fo

PER They also suspect that PEP is masterminded by some

one privileged to the secrets of the prime minister's inn

cabinet. Hawk didn't know it was Quang."

"We couldn't report to Hawk soon enough. Everythin

went down too fast at the end."

"So Quang is our first target."

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51

"He could be the worst problem out here. I don't trust

Quang. I know he's been trained at the Lumumba Institute

in the USSR."

Carter whistled. "That piece of information is enough to

get you killed."

"No one knows I have that juicy bit. I'm not doing

anything about it, not now, but it could be useful in the

long run."

"You think he's tied in with Chen?"

"It's a strong probability. That's what we were trying to

check out when we were drugged and set up," she said,

squirming into a more comfortable position beside him. '*If

Chen's usual plan was directed at Quang, he could be con-

trolling him."

"But we already know that Quang is KGB," Carter

noted.

"So he goes both ways," Samantha said, "But who has

his loyalty? I'd bet on Chen's blackmail over the KGB."

"Did you see your abductors?"

"l saw them and I know who they are. But that doesn't

do us one damned bit of good."

"No, but we could set up some surveillance, have some-

one on them at all times," Carter said. "We've got to find

out for sure if Quang is. connected with Chen. And we've

got to find out if his real masters are the Russians."

"So we need someone on Quang as well?"

"I don't want to bring anyone else in on it if we can help

it. it's up to you and me. We'll get what we want by our-

selves and then close them down."

"Is that a promise?"

"No promises," Carter said, and laughed. "Now. What

about clothes? I'll go down to the hotel boutiques when

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