“Now!”
She hit the switch and then dropped to the floor behind the desk, gun clutched in her fist. I waited for the whirr of the motor to begin, and when it did, thumbed the lighter. As the door began to swing out, I touched the flame to the plastic wad in my hand. It caught fire immediately, and by the time the door was half open, I had’ a blazing ball in my hand. Stepping up to a point just inside the door frame, I stuck my arm around the opening and heaved the flaming orb toward the spot where I thought Mustapha had to be hidden.
He had turned out the lights in the basement so as to silhouette anyone coming through the door with the glow from inside. The move worked to his disadvantage, instead; when the flaming wad of plastic suddenly appeared in the darkness, it temporarily blinded him enough to throw off his aim as he fired at my arm.
One of the .38 slugs tore along the top of the toilet paper roll Closest to my wrist. The second hit the roll nearer to my elbow, was deflected slightly, and ripped through the fleshy part of my arm there. I jerked back my hand as blood started to pour from the angry rip across my arm.
I couldn’t stop to staunch it. Grabbing the automatic rifle from where I had leaned it against the wall, I jammed it between the door frame and the massive panel itself. I had counted on the door being delicately counter-balanced, so that the rifle would be solid enough to keep it from closing.
There was no time to see if it was going to work. I had to put the next part of my plan into operation. Since I wasn’t about to stick my head around the door frame to see how effective my lob shot with a ball of fire had been, I used the mirrored door I had removed from the bathroom medicine cabinet. Angling it around the frame and fully expecting my makeshift periscope to be cracked by Mustapha’s next bullet, I took a look at the scene outside.
I had missed my target, the recess behind the basement stairway. Instead, the homemade fireball had landed beside the oil burner. As I watched, Mustapha, obviously fearing that the big heating unit might explode, darted from his hiding place and scooped up the still blazing bundle in both hands, keeping it at arm’s length so the flames wouldn’t singe him. That meant he either had discarded his gun or jammed it back under his belt. I didn’t wait to see anymore. Dropping the mirror, I drew my Luger and stepped outside, realizing as I did that my rifle wedge had been successful in keeping the concrete-sheathed door from closing.
Mustapha still held the ball of fire, looking desperately around the basement for some place to throw it. Then he spotted me standing before him with a gun leveled, and his already frightened eyes widened further. I could tell he was going to throw the flaming wad at me, so I squeezed the trigger. I never got a chance to see if I hit him.
The crack of my Luger was lost in the explosion that engulfed the Sword’s co-conspirator. I don’t know whether my slug detonated the pressurized shaving cream can, or if the heat from the blazing plastic touched off the bomb. Maybe it was a combination of both. Mustapha had raised the bundle to toss it my way and the blast caught him full in the face. Knocked to my knees by the force of the explosion, I watched as his features disintegrated. Just as the cellar went dark again — the explosion snuffed out the flames — it appeared to me as if the killer’s eyeballs had turned to liquid and were streaming down his cheeks.
Shaken, but unhurt, I stumbled to my feet and heard Sherima screaming inside the room that had been her torture chamber not long before.
“Nick! Nick! Are you all right? What happened?”
I stepped back into the doorway so she could see me.
“Score two points for our team,” I said. “Now help me get this stuff off my arm. Everything’s going to be all right.”
Chapter 14
The tape that held the blood-soaked rolls of toilet paper to my arm also held my stiletto in place. I had to wait for Sherima to locate a pair of scissors in the desk drawer before she could cut away the crimson tissue. More strips of her sheer negligee became bandages for me and, by the time she had staunched the blood bubbling from the bullet crease, there wasn’t much left of what once had been an expensive piece of lingerie.
“You’re really going to be a sensation at dinner tonight,” I said, admiring the small, firm breasts that strained against the soft fabric as she worked on my arm. My hasty explanation about her appointment at the Secretary of State’s home in less than an hour brought, I was glad to see, a typically feminine reaction: “Nick,” she gasped. “I can’t go like this!”
“I’m afraid you’re going to have to do just that. There isn’t time to get back to the Watergate and still have you on the radio by eight o’clock. Now let’s get out of here.”
She hung back, turning to look first at Candy’s body on the bed, then at the Sword sprawled on the floor. “Nick, what about Candy? We can’t leave her like this.”
“I’ll have someone take care of her, Sherima. And Abdul, too. Believe me, though, the most important thing right now is to get you on that radio, talking to—”
“ATTENTION DOWNSTAIRS. THIS HOUSE IS SURROUNDED! COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP! ATTENTION DOWNSTAIRS. THIS HOUSE IS SURROUNDED. COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP.”
The bullhorn echoed itself again, then was silent. Help had arrived. Hawk’s men must have charged the house when they heard the shaving cream bomb go off and, probably, conducted a room by room search on the upper floors before deciding to bring the squawker to the basement door. They most likely got quite a surprise when they opened it and the acrid haze from the extinguished plastic fire rolled out to them.
I stepped to the concrete doorway and called out, “This is Nick Carter,” then identified myself as an executive of the oil company that supposedly employed me. There was a lot I hadn’t explained to Sherima yet, and some of it never would be told her. For the moment, it seemed best to revert to the way she originally knew me.
“I’m down here with… with Miss Liz Chanley. We need help. And an ambulance.”
“STEP THROUGH THE DOORWAY WITH YOUR HANDS UP.”
I obeyed the bullhorned instructions. One of the AXE agents at the top of the steps recognized me and the cellar quickly filled up with Hawk’s men. It took a few valuable minutes to instruct the leader of the team in what had to be done at the house, then I said, “I need a car.”
He handed over his keys and told me where his car was parked. “Do you need someone to drive you?”
“No. We’ll make it.” I turned to Sherima and offered her my arm, saying, “Shall we go, Your Highness?”
Every bit the Queen again, despite wearing a royal gown that was shredded halfway up her thighs and left little to the imagination, she took my arm. “We are pleased to retire now, Mr. Carter.”
“Yes ma’am,” I. said and led her past the bewildered AXE agents who were already working on the Sword. They were trying to bring him back to consciousness before the ambulance arrived that would take him to the little private hospital Hawk had liberally endowed with agency funds so that he was assured a special ward for patients in whom he had an interest. Sherima stopped at the door as she heard him groan again and turned just as his eyes opened and he stared at her.
“Abdul, you’re fired,” she said grandly, then swept out of the hideaway and up the stairs ahead of me.
As the Secretary of State and Hawk appeared from the richly paneled library doorway, I got to my feet. The canopied porter’s chair had been comfortable and I had almost dozed off. The Secretary spoke briefly with the Old Man, then went back into the room where his powerful transmitter was located. Hawk crossed to my side.
“We wanted to give her a couple of minutes of privacy on the radio with him,” he said. “At least as much privacy as there can be, what with monitoring equipment being what it is today.”