Chapter 13
A Drink for Nick
He was swimming back toward the world, fighting up from a dark and sticky pit, and the struggle was killing him. There were stones where his lungs should be and an iron vise was clamped about his middle; the long curving slide up which he was struggling was greased, he would take a step and then slip back, cursing and crying. Finally, by dint of super-effort, he made it to the top of the slide only to meet a thick wall of dark green glass. He was stopped, trapped, imprisoned behind the thick green glass. He knew then that he was some sort of fish — a poor fish in a gigantic bowl of green glass. Beyond the bowl the real world moved, distorted and thrown into caricature by the lens-like green glass.
Figures moved beyond the glass. Nick rested at the top of the greasy slide and watched them with apathy. He waved to them and tried to cry out, but his voice was a dismal croak and they ignored him. Suddenly he envied those beyond the glass with a terrible envy! They were alive, set apart, of the real world!
He rested and watched them. Vague remembrance stirred in his mind. The one in the dinner jacket! Surely he had seen that one before. He watched now as the figure in the dinner jacket came closer. The sleeked back shiny black hair, the coal dark eyes, the little wisp of moustache — a chiseled hard and handsome face!
The probe of memory slashed deeper — he did know this man from someplace! But wait — surely this was a clue! The man in the dinner jacket was going to shave! Shave? No — that couldn't be it! Nick clung to the top of the greasy slide that led back down to Hell and watched the man. He had taken a razor from his pocket, an old fashioned straight razor, and now he was approaching Nick. Nick felt no alarm. He was safe behind the thick green glass. The man with the straight razor could not get through!
Another figure swam into the confused picture. A tall, angular, spidery figure wearing some sort of white smock; a tall man with a vulture's face. Nick watched with great and consuming interest. The two figures were talking now, arguing about something. Nick knew, without knowing how or why, that they were discussing him.
The spidery man with the vulture's face won the argument. He was taking the man in the dinner jacket by the arm now, was leading him to the door, pushing him out of the room. Nick felt an odd sense of relief. Perhaps the vulture man was a friend!
The man in the white smock came back to the green glass barrier. He stood just the other side of it and peered in at Nick. He had something in his hand now. A small cup! Poison? thought Nick.
The white smocked man was reaching now, the small cup steady in his hand. Nick did not shrink away. The thick green glass would protect him. He began to laugh.
The glass shattered in a soft and noiseless explosion. Nick felt himself catapulted back to reality. He stared up at the vulture faced man just as the contents of the cup was forced down his throat.
"Well," said the man bending over him. "So you've come back to us at last." He was speaking English. He stared down at Nick for a moment, false teeth shiny behind bloodless thin lips. In Turkish he said, "Tunaydin." Good afternoon.
Nick tried to sit up. The man pushed him gently back down on the white hospital bed. He patted Nick's shoulder, an avuncular gesture that Nick, somehow, knew was very wrong. Swift instinct warned him — everything was wrong! Yet this was a hospital room, no doubt of that, and this man must be a doctor! That plane — the plane he had heard just before he passed out — that must have been either a Syrian or Turkish plane. It or a patrol must have found him and brought him out of the wilderness to a hospital. And yet — the man with the razor! Or had that been a crazy dream?
The man in the white doctor's smock was gazing down at him, an odd little smile on his face. He stroked his pointed chin with tapering, fingers. He did look like a vulture, Nick thought. A sort of evil, intellectual vulture. Coldness formed around his heart. He knew where he was now! And he knew who this man was! That plane — it had not been either Syrian or Turkish. It had been their plane!
The doctor must have read something of Nick's thoughts. He smiled, showing all of his perfectly fitting false teeth. "I see that you have figured it out, Mr. Carter. I thought you would in time. You are very quick, especially for a man in your condition."
Nick closed his eyes for a moment. He had to think. He was aware of a cloying, persistent drowsiness. Something in the drink he had just been given? His earlier thoughts came flashing back — truth serums and sharp little knives. The AXE man felt slow rage begin to build in him — goddamn it, after all he had been through! Now he would have to stand up to torture! He wasn't at all sure that he could do it — not in his present state.
He said: "My name isn't Carter. I don't know anyone named Carter. Who are you, anyway? And where am I?" Just to check, he thought bitterly. He knew!
The doctor bent over Nick and pulled back the sleeve of the surgical gown. He pointed to the little AXE tattoo. "You do not deny that you are an AXE agent?"
N3 would have liked to spit in his eye, but he was too weak. The sleepiness was growing. "I deny nothing," he said harshly. "I affirm nothing. Now either answer my questions or leave me alone. I'm sleepy as hell."
The doctor smiled again. He fumbled in his pockets for cigarettes, lit one, offered one to Nick who refused. The doctor stroked his chin again.
"You will get sleepier," he said. "You have, in fact, about one hour to live! I have just given you a massive dose of morphine, Mr. Carter!"
"I'm not Carter," N3 said stubbornly. "But I know who you are, you bastard! You're Dr. Joseph Six, aren't you? And I'm in your sanitarium on the Bosphorus. How soon does the torture start, Doc?"
"I don't think you understood me, Mr. Carter. I just told you that I gave you a massive dose of morphine! You are dying now."
Nick grunted. "So you say."
The doctor shrugged. "Very well. You will find out. But as to torturing you, Mr. Carter, we have decided against that. You are much too dangerous to leave alive any longer than absolutely necessary! You claim you are not Carter, of the AXE murder section? Perhaps we are wrong, but I don't think so! You must be Carter, though we have no definite proof. Everything we have heard, and seen, points to you being Carter! It may please you, Mr. Carter, and I don't mind telling you now that you are to die shortly, that you have succeeded in wrecking a very important and costly operation!"
"Good for me," said Nick. "But I'm not finished yet. Two more to go — and I'm not Carter!"
Dr. Joseph Six built a little steeple with his long fingers. He peered at the man in the bed. "I think I understand. But you don't, not yet. You are dying, Mr. Carter. I am not lying or trying to trick you. Very shortly you will die and we will dress you and leave your body to be found by the Turkish police in Istanbul. You will have died of an overdose of morphine. There will be nothing to point to us — which is the reason I could not let Johnny have his way. He wanted to cut your throat — like all the others. I thought it unwise, however. We are getting out — the Chinese are taking over the setup — and I — " here the doctor laughed, a shrill neighing sound, "I for one would like to spend my money in peace. I am an old man now — I should like to retire to the Greek islands and bask in the sun without fear of retribution. So I, er, dissuaded Johnny from cutting your throat. No easy task, mind you. He is something of a sadist, our Johnny. I might even say a psychotic!"
Nick began consciously to fight off sleep. Maybe this bastard was telling the truth! One thing, the man liked the sound of his own voice! Liked to talk. Let him, then. Find out all he could. The chances were that the man was lying — they wouldn't kill him so soon! He had been given something, of course, that was making him hellishly sleepy, probably a new form of truth serum. It would gain them little enough. Hawk's policy, AXE poli-