“Nick! Come on!” Candy was waving at me from the turn-off into the woods. I waved and headed after them, pausing just for a moment to turn once more to see if Bedawi had heard her and would start after us. He hadn’t lifted his head. Probably has the motor running and can’t hear anything, I decided.
When I caught up to Sherima and Candy, they were busily reading a brass plaque attached to a huge boulder beside the trail to the Falls. The Japanese camera bugs were nowhere in sight, which didn’t surprise me, but I had expected to hear them on the twisted path that lay ahead. The forest was quiet around us, however, with the women’s chatter the only sound.
I moved past them, then waited until they caught up at a footbridge over the first of the little rushing streams that flowed noisily through the woods. As they peered down at the frothy water below us, Candy asked, “Why is it so foamy? The water doesn’t seem to be moving so fast that it would make all that froth.”
“It’s not nature making those bubbles. That’s plain old American pollution,” I said. “That foam is just what it looks like — soap suds. Detergent, to be exact. They get into the river from upstream, then when they get swirled by the fast current here, the foam starts to form, just like in the washing machine.”
We moved on to another footbridge that passed over a swifter current which had cut a deeper ravine in the rock formation. Sherima pointed out to us one spot where the rushing water had dug out a pothole; inside the hole a small rock was trapped and the water that flowed through the pothole spun it about frantically. She started to tell Candy about a glacier garden she had visited in Lucerne, Switzerland. I took advantage of their interest in the discussion of water being able to make little stones out of big ones, and slipped ahead on the trail.
About twenty yards further on, the sudden snap of a branch to the side and slightly in front of me froze me in my steps. I waited an instant, then, hearing nothing more, stepped off the path and slipped into the underbrush, moving in a wide circle.
“Where are they?”
The whisper was in Japanese, off to my left, closer to the Falls trail. Creeping forward, I found myself staring at the backs of two of the Japanese tourists, who were crouched behind a huge boulder.
“Shut up,” the second man hissed in reply to his companion’s anxious question. “They’ll be along soon.”
The nervous one wasn’t to be silenced. “Why are there three of them? We were told there would be just two women. Are we to kill the man, too? Who is he?”
“I don’t know who he is,” the other one said. I recognized him as the English-speaking clock-watcher.
It was difficult to translate the Japanese whispers, and I wished he were using English again. “Whoever he is, he must die like them. There are to be no witnesses. That is the Sword’s order. Now be quiet; they will hear you.”
Japanese and working for the Sword! Wait until Hawk hears about this, I thought, then added to myself, if he ever does. I was pretty certain I could handle the pair in front of me, despite the silencer-equipped pistols both of them held. It was the third one who had me worried. I didn’t know just where he was, and the women would be along any moment. Praying that the pothole and the swirling rock would hypnotize them just a few minutes longer, I slid Wilhelmina from the belt holster and let Hugo drop into my hand from the forearm sheath. Both of the waiting assassins would have to die at the same time, With no noise. Slipping off my jacket, I wrapped it around my left hand and the Luger. It was a very makeshift sort of silencer, but it would have to do.
I swiftly moved four paces forward, bringing myself right behind the pair before they were aware of my presence. At the instant the cloth-swaddled Luger touched the back of the nervous Japanese man’s neck, I pulled the trigger. I had made certain that the muzzle was tilted upward, so the slug tore through his brain, exiting from the top of his head. The bullet continued its path skyward, as I had calculated. I couldn’t have afforded the noise that would have been inevitable if it had struck a rock or a tree when it left his skull.
Even as his head jerked backward in a death contraction, my knife was sliding between the discs of the other’s spine, severing the cords that controlled his nervous system. My arm with its jacket wrapping came forward and closed over the dead man’s mouth, just in case he might scream, but there wasn’t even a gasp for air. I swung a hip to pin the first dead man to the boulder as I lowered the second one quietly to the ground, then let his companion slide down silently beside him. As I did, I heard a call from back along the trail.
“Nick, where are you?” It was Candy. They must have realized I was no longer around, and perhaps had become frightened in the stillness of the woods.
“Up here,” I called back, deciding that I had to let the third killer find me. “Just keep coming along the trail.”
Arranging the jacket so that it looked like I had casually tossed it over my arm, I stepped out onto the trail and began walking. I knew he had to be nearby — they wouldn’t have separated too far apart — and I was right. As I rounded a huge slab of granite that practically formed a wall beside the path, he suddenly stepped into view, blocking my progress. A silencer-fitted pistol was leveled at my gut
“Don’t shoot; I’m the Sword,” I whispered in Japanese. His hesitation marked him as a non-professional and it cost him his life. The slug from my jacket-wrapped luger caught him in the heart and coursed upward, lifting his body for a moment before he started to slump forward. I caught him and dragged him behind the granite slab, dumping him there. A grisly burbling came from his gaping mouth. I couldn’t risk having Sherima or Candy hear him as they passed by, so I tore loose a clump of grass and shoved it deep between the lips that already were turning blue. Blood welled from around my makeshift gag, but no sound penetrated it Turning and running back the few feet to where the other dead Japanese lay, I pulled them around the boulder where they had set up their ambush, working swiftly as I heard Sherima’s and Candy’s voices coming closer. By the time they reached me, I was back standing on the trail, my jacket once more draped casually over my arm so that the bullet holes didn’t show, my collar and tie loosened. I had transferred my gun, holster, and wallet to my pants pockets.
Candy asked the question that was on both their faces. “Too warm, Nick?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I drawled. “This hiking surely is hot work on such a balmy day. I hope you ladies don’t mind.”
“I certainly don’t,” Sherima said. “This wool pants suit is starting to feel pretty uncomfortable, too.”
“Mine, too,” Candy chimed in. “In fact, I think I’ll just put this jacket around my shoulders.” She slipped off her jacket and, as I helped her adjust it around her shoulders, I noticed that she had settled on a bra under today’s man-tailored white shirt. It didn’t quite succeed in restraining her ample breasts. She seemed to sense my critical appraisal, because she turned just enough to brush her right breast against my chest, then looked up innocently at me. I played the game with her, lifting a hand as if to brush back an errant strand of my hair, but making certain my fingers trailed across the bulging shirtfront. Her quick, muted gasp told me that she was feeling the same desire that was rising in me.