At that point, it didn’t matter to me what had been on their agenda; I had to get into that Nova and get out of there before one of the servants of the man with three eyes went into Krischikov’s room and discovered the body. The only thing stopping me from getting out of there was this pair of killers. I was pretty certain they had been briefed on what most of our people looked like, including me. Ours isn’t the only intelligence network clever enough to keep “make-sheets” on the enemy.
I couldn’t stand on the doorstep any longer without arousing their suspicions, and the Nova was the only certain transportation I had out of the area, so I started to walk toward it. Hardy — the beefy one, whom AXE had warned me was a lethal pile of solid muscle — was standing with his back to me. The gangly one — Laurel, a reputed expert with a switchblade who delighted in slicing little pieces off his prisoners until they were ready to talk — was looking right at me as I approached, but not really seeing me in the shadows, engrossed as he was in conversation.
I could see that just about the time I got to the car trunk I would come into the streetlamp’s little circle of light, and that Laurel probably would be watching me as I walked closer. I angled to the curb, so that Hardy’s back would partially block his companion’s view of me. The size of that back could have blocked out the approach of an M16 tank, except that Laurel was about a head taller than his partner. Instinctively, I knew that something about me had attracted Laurel’s attention as I stepped off the sidewalk and set down my luggage behind the car. Keeping my head turned toward the street, I took out the keys and opened the trunk, sensing as I did, that Laurel had stopped talking and was walking to the rear of the car.
The click of a switchblade told me that I had been recognized. I. turned to face him just as he lunged toward me, preceded by five inches of steel. I sidestepped and let his momentum carry him forward, then backhanded him on the side of the neck in the nerve center just below the ear. He fell face down into the trunk and I reached up and slammed the lid on his lower back. The heavy metal edge hit him at just about belt level and I could hear a loud snap that must have been his spine.
I flipped the trunk lid up again and, in the small glow of its light, I could see his face, twisted in pain, the mouth gaping open in silent screams of agony that no one would hear.
By that time, Hardy was lumbering around the back of the car, one hamlike hand reaching for me as the other fumbled at his belt for a gun. I scooped up a jack handle from the trunk and, using it like an extension of my arm, smashed it straight into that huge pudding face. He backed off, spitting out bits of shattered teeth and snarling in pain as blood spurted from what had been his nose. The arm that had been trying to grab me transformed into a swinging pole as solid as a two-by-four as he swept the jack handle from my grasp. It sailed through the air and clattered to the street.
If he had been smart, he would have kept trying to free his gun, which was caught between his overflowing belly and a tight belt. Instead, maddened by pain, he lunged forward like an enraged bear, arms spread wide to enfold me in what I knew would be a deadly hug. I had been warned that it was his favorite method of slaughter. At least two men we knew about had been found squeezed almost to pulp, their ribs crushed into vital organs, dying horribly as they drowned in their own blood. I back-stepped onto the curb; locking my eyes onto his gargantuan arms.
As I moved away from that terrible embrace, he tripped over the dead Laurel’s feet and stumbled forward to his knees. Clenching my hands together, I brought them down on the back of his neck, and he sprawled full-length on the street. The blow would have killed most men instantly, but as I watched In amazement, he grunted, swung his massive head as if to clear his muddled brain, and started to get to his knees. His groping hands stretched out for support and one of them closed on Laurel’s switchblade which had fallen to the pavement. Sausage-like fingers wrapped around the knife handle as he began to rise. What was almost a smile shaped itself on that bloody, now gap-toothed mouth and little piggish eyes gleamed evilly as they focused on me. Recognition also, came into them as he realized who I was, and blood bubbled from his lips as he swore in Russian and said:
“Sobachkin syn! I split you in two, Carter, and feed you to pigs.” The muscles in his neck strained and a heavy pulse beat danced grotesquely just under the reddening flesh of his thick neck. He took two lumbering steps toward me. Like a punter being rushed by the Vikings defensive line, I kicked him in that ugly crushed-pumpkin face.
The powerful blob of flesh pitched forward again. The hand clutching the knife hit the street first, holding the blade upright, and the beefy neck came down on it. I sidestepped the spurting blood that fountained from his severed artery and walked to the back of the Nova; jerking Laurel’s still twitching body from the trunk, I slammed the lid.
As I put my luggage in the rear seat, I heard a shout from the house across the street. It came through the open second-floor French doors and I knew that Krischikov’s corpse had been discovered. Getting into the Nova, I swung swiftly into the still quiet street and headed for the airport, thinking grimly that more surprises lay ahead for the man upstairs when he began to look for Krischikov’s bodyguards.
Chapter 2
One thing I had to say about whatever role Hawk was having me play, it came with nice accommodations. According to the tags on the Gucci luggage that was waiting in the room at the Watergate when I arrived, I was Nick Carter of East 48th Street in Manhattan. I recognized the address as that of the Turtle Bay brownstones our bureau used, as offices, “safe house,” and a New York cover residence. The clothes in the bags were obviously expensive, conservative in color, and their cut suggested the taste of a Western oil millionaire. Those boys in Dallas and Houston may not go in for flashy tweeds and checks, but they like their traveling clothes to be as comfortable as the Levi’s they wear around the old corral. The wide-shouldered, side-vented jackets topped tight-fitting trousers with pockets set in the front, blue-jean style, and wide loops to handle the stiff, brass-buckled belts that were packed with them. The extra soft white cotton shirts had double pockets, with buttons in the front. Everything was the right size, I noted, even the several pairs of three-hundred-dollar hand-tooled boots.
If Hawk wants me to play a wealthy oilman-type, I thought as I unpacked and stored things away in the huge walk-in closet, I don’t mind a bit. The room helped, too. As large as some studio apartments I’d lived in — which is just what it originally was intended to be, because the Watergate was designed as a residence hotel when it first opened — the combination living room-bedroom was about twenty-four feet long and eighteen feet wide. It held a full-size sofa, a couple of side chairs, a large color TV, a complete kitchenette, and a king-size bed was set in an alcove.
Light streamed into the room from the floor-to-ceiling windows that opened onto the terrace. I looked out over the ten-acre Watergate complex, toward the grandly historic Potomac River, and saw four sculls streaking smoothly over the water. Racing season must be on, I realized, as I watched the college crews stroking rhythmically with the oars. I could tell just when the rival coxswains upped the beat, for the shells suddenly shot forward on the swift-flowing current. My appreciation of the close coordination of the rowers was interrupted by the ringing of the phone. Hawk, I bet myself, as I picked up the receiver. But the voice that said “Mr. Carter?” told me that this was one time out of a hundred that I was wrong.